Justices Put Curbs on Payment for Lawyers
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it a little harder for civil rights lawyers to be paid extra for exceptional results.
In most American lawsuits, each side pays for its own lawyers whether they win or lose. But Congress occasionally allows the winning side to claim its legal fees from its adversaries, notably in cases involving claims of civil rights violations.
The question in the case decided Wednesday, Perdue v. Kenny A., No. 08-970, was how judges should determine how much the losing side has to pay.
The case arose from a successful class-action suit on behalf of 3,000 children in Georgia that helped reform the foster-care system there.
The trial judge awarded the lawyers $6 million using a conventional way of calculating legal fees — hours worked times the local hourly market rate for lawyers of comparable experience and skill. The judge then added $4.5 million for what he said was work of exceptionally high quality.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, writing for five justices, said that some additional payments may be proper in rare cases but that the judge here had not given good enough reasons for increasing the basic payment by 75 percent...more
See, every time Children's Rights files a class action, it files on behalf of children in foster care to provide them more services and to expedite the process of adoption. Children's Rights does not advocate for the children who have been improperly and unnecessarily removed form the family, nor does it advocate for the child victims who have been legally kidnapped. Children's Rights does not advocate for damages to the children who have been harmed in foster care, not even to the children were able to get the class certification on the case. Children's Rights brings forth these class action law suits because they know they have a guaranteed money making cash cow.
See, there is no why, shape or form a state can meet the requirements of any of the settlement agreements.
Even though it is admirable that this organization has taken the initiative to protect children from the horrific conditions in the foster care system, Children's Rights fails to consider that these children are mostly being placed in foster care due to poverty and fraud.
I have loosely developed my own hypothesis for these class action events. When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General comes out with extremely poor audits of a state child welfare systems, Children's Rights gears up to file because the money to be had does not come from the settlement agreement of the case, it comes from the settlement agreement of the attorney fees and the likelihood that the state will not meet the criteria for compliance, meaning the state will breach the settlement agreement and there shall be more attorney fees incurred.
Actually, this is quite brilliant, so I do not fault, as I am only here to inspire people to do more through education.
Of these attorney fee settlement agreements, not one single penny will go to the children of these cases. Not one penny will even remain in the state of where the agreement was entered. Not one penny will go to a family to prevent a placement in foster care for lack of resources such as housing or medical care.
In the end, the children still loose until someone stands up and takes action to stop the fraud in child welfare.
Childrens Rights Attorney Fees
$6.2 million reasons why we continue to celebrate...
Children's Rights Attorney Fees SCOTUS Decision
Happy Child Abuse Propaganda Month!
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