JEFFERSON CITY — Following a Supreme Court ruling that a Missouri church had been denied its constitutional rights when the state rejected its application for a playground subsidy, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled on attorneys' fees and costs, roughly halving the original estimate submitted by the church.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia sued Carol S. Gomer, director of the Missouri Deptartment of Natural Resources solid waste management program after the department denied Trinity's application for a playground resurfacing grant, stating that its policy disqualified religious organizations from receiving such grants. Officials of Trinity Lutheran claimed the denial violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
In September 2013, the Western Missouri Court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the claim, and in January 2014 denied a motion by Trinity Lutheran to reconsider and file an amended complaint.
In May 2015, the Eighth Circuit Court denied a hearing on the matter and affirmed the earlier decision.
However a Jan. 26, 2017 appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the plaintiff, that the denial of Trinity Lutheran’s application for a playground resurfacing grant—for which it was otherwise qualified, on the sole ground that it was a religious institution—violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
The parties then agreed the plaintiff had prevailed in the litigation and they would submit a reasonable estimate of attorney fees and court costs.
Attorneys for Trinity Lutheran submitted total costs of $840,605, but the Western Missouri Court found the amount submitted was not reasonable.
The plaintiff had selected attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) based in Kansas City to handle its case.
“The burden of establishing the appropriate (attorney) rate rests on the fee applicant,” the court opinion stated. “The burden is to produce satisfactory evidence that the requested rates are in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience and reputation.”
The court noted that sufficiently experienced and skilled counsel was available locally.
“There is no indication Trinity Lutheran made any attempt to find other local counsel to take its case,” the opinion added. “Trinity Lutheran’s representative states it knew of no other attorneys based in Colombia or nearby areas of Kansas City and St. Louis who had experience handling First Amendment cases like this, who would be willing to represent the church for free with absolutely no future promise of payment.”
The court document indicated the church found the counsel it sought, but did not know of other local attorneys who would take the case. This did not mean the church was “unable” to find other local attorneys to represent it.
Reasonable attorney rates in Missouri for lawyers experienced in First Amendment law were cited between $200 per hour to $375.
The court determined the $840,605 requested was excessive based on a number of factors including administrative tasks charged that should not have been performed by an attorney, charges for dealing with media in the case, excessive time spent soliciting and reviewing filings and researching legal issues at the Supreme Court, listening to oral arguments in other cases, reviewing filings with no relevance to the case and duplicative attorney work.
Based on the findings the Missouri Western Court granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff’s motion for fees and reduced the amount to a total $433,791.