Lori Pilger – May 23, 2024 – Lincoln Journal Star

My cmnt: The Lincoln police dept, under the authority of a liberal, democrat, female mayor from Portland, has – according to the reporting – A number of sex discrimination cases remain open against the city, all of them filed by current or former Lincoln Police Officers. This good ol’ girls club has a long history of discrimination, ironically, against other females. I’ve posted a number of articles from the LJS on this site about this abuse of power by women against women. As Rush used to say, “A Liberal is a liberal first before race, creed, color, religion, gender or any other superficial characteristic.”

A federal judge says the city must pay nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in attorney fees and costs in the case of a former Lincoln firefighter whose discrimination lawsuit was settled in January.

It wasn’t the $1.6 million that Gretna attorney Kelly Brandon had sought for her firm’s representation of Amanda Benson.

Neither was it the $371,970 that the city suggested was sufficient.

“The court awards attorney fees, expenses and costs but in a total amount considerably less than plaintiff seeks, because the court finds numerous reductions are appropriate,” United States District Judge Brian Buescher wrote in an order last week.

Consequently, he said, he was awarding $638,156.07 for attorney fees and $88,719.97 for expenses and costs, for a total of $726,876.04.

The city’s insurance will have to pay it.

City Attorney Yohance Christie declined to comment this week. But in a brief earlier this year, Omaha attorney Heidi Guttau, who was retained by the city in the case, alleged Brandon had intentionally maximized the firm’s time litigating the case in order to drive up fees.

She asked the federal judge to reduce it to, at most, $325,000 for attorney fees, plus $46,970 for costs and expenses, for a total of no more than $371,970.

In January, the city agreed to pay Benson $650,000 to settle the lawsuit she filed in U.S. District Court in 2018, alleging the city ignored complaints she filed about a hostile work environment at Lincoln Fire and Rescue, exonerated employees who contributed to it and didn’t take steps to fix the problems.

The amount represented $600,000 for emotional distress and $50,000 in wages.

A month later, Brandon, Benson’s attorney, submitted her request for $1,672,281 in attorney fees, plus $143,000 in out-of-pocket costs.

In an accompanying brief, she said the city had mounted an unusually zealous defense, steadfastly refusing to accept any responsibility for its actions and filing multiple motions in “an effort to evade liability.”

“It would be an understatement to say that this case was heavily litigated,” she wrote.

In a brief, Guttau opposed the amount, saying Brandon’s request was more than two-and-a-half times the amount of the settlement, saying the “disproportionate number” results from exorbitantly high billing rates of $600 and $425 per hour for the two lead attorneys.

She proposed $325,000 — half of the parties’ settlement amount — in attorney fees instead, saying that while Benson was the prevailing party for purposes of the fee application, she arguably would have been better off financially had she accepted the city’s offer of judgment of $300,000 made in July 2019.

While the usual method to determine reasonable attorney fees to award is the “lodestar method,” which looks at the number of hours expended at a reasonable rate, the city asked the court to use a proportionality method between the attorney fees and the ultimate settlement amount, in this case $650,000.

On the other side, Brandon said that it wasn’t unusual for fee awards to exceed recoveries in civil rights cases, to ensure that attorneys are available to litigate such cases.

Buescher ultimately went with the Lodestar method, using a weighted average hourly rate of $405.70, which he said was likely to “leave both sides aggrieved,” and he cut hours he deemed unnecessary.

In a 76-page order on May 13, the judge pointed out areas he described as “overlitigation” in the case, “resulting in excessive and unnecessary hours of attorney time.”

“The amount of discovery in this case was out of all proportion to a case that ultimately was rather straightforward: A single plaintiff was suing her former employer for various claims regarding her former employment,” he wrote.

Buescher said one of the clearest examples of wasteful litigation involved Brandon’s intention to call Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird as a trial witness.

He said he found that Benson sought her testimony “primarily — if not entirely — because she is the highest-level executive of the City, not because she had any special knowledge or involvement in the matters in dispute.”

Buescher said he was left with the firm conviction it had been done for punitive reasons.

Before the settlement, he ruled that Gaylor Baird couldn’t be called because she wasn’t directly involved in the investigation of Benson’s complaints or the decision to terminate her and didn’t have information that wasn’t available from other sources.

In a statement, the Fiedler Law Firm said they fought side by side with Benson through seven years of contentious litigation and are as proud of the fight as they are of the victory and hope it causes the city to finally reflect on and fix its “flawed policies and toxic culture.”

“Sadly, Judge Buescher through his reductions to the award, made clear how he views those who fight for basic civil rights. Respectfully (and quite proudly), WE DISSENT,” the statement said.

Benson called it the most challenging and traumatizing experience she has ever endured, and said when she felt alone, sometimes the only thing that kept her head above water was Brandon’s voice on the other end of the line.

She said attorneys who take these cases are essential to the rebalancing of power between employee and employer, and give employees back their voice.

“My ultimate goal was always to make things better for my fellow female firefighters and city employees. I hope this case plays a small part in bringing about much needed change,” Benson said. 

Her lawsuit followed two others by then-Capts. Brian Giles and Troy Hurd, who said they faced retaliation after reporting harassment of a female firefighter.

In 2019, a federal jury awarded Hurd $1.1 million. The judgment later was reduced by a judge, and the city agreed to pay Hurd $600,000 to avoid a second trial.

In 2020, the city agreed to pay Giles $280,000 to settle his lawsuit.

A number of sex discrimination cases remain open against the city, all of them filed by current or former Lincoln Police Officers.