Attorneys Fees Awarded To Defendant In Employment Discrimination Case
March 23, 2011
After more than five years of litigation, a defendant school board member was recently awarded over $136,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs from the plaintiff’s counsel in an employment discrimination case. An employer’s recovery of its attorney’s fees in an employment discrimination case is a fairly rare event. Under the federal anti-discrimination laws, when an employee sues his/her employer for discrimination and wins, the employee is considered to be the “prevailing party” and is therefore entitled to recover the reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees incurred in proving that he/she was unlawfully discriminated against. When the sued employer wins, the employer is likewise the prevailing party. However, the employer is generally not able to recoup the attorneys’ fees that were incurred in defending the claims. The policy behind this rule is a belief that an individual who has meritorious discrimination claims may nonetheless chose not to sue to enforce his or her rights out of fear that the individual may lose and have to pay the former employer’s attorneys’ fees. For that reason, the law builds in extra hurdles which victorious employers must overcome. For a prevailing defendant employer to be awarded fees, the employer must typically show that the claim was frivolous and should never have been brought in the first place. In other words, it must show that the employee’s claim had no foundation in either law or fact.
In Capone v. Patchogue-Medford Union Free School District, one of the defendants made that showing. The case arose when an employee terminated by a school district for misconduct sued the district and individual Board of Education members claiming that his termination violated the anti-discrimination laws. One of the Board members sued was Tina Marie Weeks, who had actually voted against terminating the employee. Throughout the litigation, Ms. Weeks argued that the discrimination claims brought against her were frivolous. Ms. Weeks’ attorneys repeatedly put the plaintiff’s attorney on notice of that position, citing binding caselaw, and further advised the attorney that if the frivolous claims were not withdrawn, Ms. Weeks would seek a full fee shift against the plaintiff and his counsel. The frivolous claims were not withdrawn and Ms. Weeks moved for an award of the full amount of attorneys’ fees incurred by her during the litigation. The District Court granted the motion, and ordered plaintiff’s counsel to pay Ms. Weeks over $116,000 in attorneys’ fees and $20,500 in litigation costs.
Hopefully, the Capone decision will serve as a deterrent to future frivolous litigation. When defendant employers are faced with frivolous claims, plaintiff’s counsel should be put on notice, in writing, early on in the litigation and frequently thereafter that their case is frivolous in fact and law. Plaintiffs’ counsel should further be advised that both counsel and the client may be subject to a full fee shift if the frivolous case is not withdrawn. If they do so, defendant employers may be spared the cost of litigating claims which should never have been brought.
