Schwarzenegger-Shriver Divorce Heats Up.
In a July 21, 2011 post by Jill Stewart at laweekly.com, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in recently filed dissolution papers, has balked at paying any divorce attorney’s fees to Maria Shriver. His attorney indicated that both sides should pay for their own attorney’s fees in the pending dissolution action.
San Bernardino Public Employee Plaintiff Awarded Over $530,000 in Fees.
Melissa Pinion-Whitt, in a July 22, 2011 article in San Bernardino/Inland Empire’s The Sun, reports that San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Frank Gafkowski (who sits in Joshua Tree) awarded Edward C. Norton, San Bernardino City Unified School District’s maintenance and operations director, $535,129 in fees and costs after he won a harassment/retaliation lawsuit against the District and top administrator earlier this month.
Environmental Groups Do Not Get All Attorney’s Fees Awarded in Forest Service Cases.
In a new study authored by M.J. Mortimer and R.W. Malmsheimer–which was published in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Forestry–these researchers studied Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) fees paid by the Forest Service between 1999 and 2005. According to the study, the Service paid out $6,137,584 during that period, but only $3.2 million (52%) went to the prevailing environmental groups in the 14 cases, contrasted with commodity groups, law firms, attorneys, and individuals garnering about $1.4 million and with $1.5 million going to unlisted recipients.
EAJA is a federal fee-shifting statute which allows citizens, nonprofits, and others to collect fees when they prevail in court cases and show the government’s position was not “substantially justified.” The income received by the environmental groups from the Forest Service was a tiny percentage of total revenues for the groups, debunking the myth that environmental groups get rich off of these cases. The authors of the study were also unable to conclude that the availability of EAJA fees caused more frequent filing of lawsuits of this ilk.
More details on this study are available for reading at a July 22, 2011 release at the Center for Biological Diversity’s website, which we thank for the informative release.