Appeals Court: Firm will not be reimbursed $2 million in VRA legal battle

Published 11:40 am Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Members of Shelby County and area NAACP chapters hold a press conference in front of the Shelby County Courthouse aimed at supporting the Voting Rights Act. (File)

Members of Shelby County and area NAACP chapters hold a press conference in front of the Shelby County Courthouse aimed at supporting the Voting Rights Act. (File)

By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has ruled a Washington, D.C.-based organization is ineligible to receive reimbursement of more than $2 million in attorney and legal fees it spent while funding Shelby County’s fight to overturn portions of the Voting Rights act of 1965.

In a June 2013 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, effectively repealing a law requiring Alabama and municipalities in 16 other states to seek preclearance from the U.S. Justice Department before making voting or election-related changes.

The Supreme Court’s decision came as the result of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court court by Shelby County. After losing in District Court and before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Shelby County prevailed in Supreme Court in 2013.

After the Supreme Court ruled on the matter, Shelby County sought to have more than $2 million in attorney and legal fees reimbursed in District Court, but a District Court judge ruled the county was not entitled to such reimbursement.

“We agree with the district court that Shelby County is not entitled to fees,” read a Sept. 1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals. “A party is entitled to fees only when it shows that its success in litigation advanced the goals Congress intended the relevant fee-shifting provision to promote. When a party’s success did not advance those goals, it is not entitled to fees.”

Shelby County Manager Alex Dudchock said no county funds were expended in the lawsuit, and said the legal battle was funded by the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Fair Representation. If the reimbursement would have been approved, it would have gone to the organization, Dudckock said.

“We spent no local county funds on that battle,” Dudchock said. “It was all paid by that national firm.”

Circuit Court Judges Thomas B. Griffith, David S. Tatel and Laurence H. Silberman filed concurring opinions alongside the Court of Appeals’ decision.

“I agree with Judge Silberman that Shelby County would have been eligible for fees had it prevailed in a suit brought on behalf of voters to vindicate their 14th and 15th Amendment rights to be free from discrimination in voting. But that is not the case the County filed,” Tatel wrote.