Boner Boy Wins $1 Million in Legal Fees

A simple man...

BLT:

House Minority Leader John Boehner has won, thoroughly, in his 11-year tussle with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

Last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that McDermott had no First Amendment right to disclose a recording of a conversation between Boehner (pictured) and top House Republicans to the media. McDermott appealed, but the Supreme Court declined to review the ruling in December.
Still, there was the matter of legal fees.

McDermott’s lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis argued that Boehner ran up the bill with pointless arguments, while Boehner’s crew at Jones Day countered that the Ohio congressman ultimately prevailed on the only claim for which he sought fees — the claim that McDermott violated the federal wiretapping statute by handing the recordings over to reporters.

In an opinion yesterday, Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan gave Boehner almost everything he asked for. McDermott, the judge ruled, owes Boehner’s attorneys — Jones Day’s Louis Fisher, Michael Carvin, and Christopher Perry — $850,887 for litigation, $14,153 for work on an amicus brief in a related Supreme Court case, Bartnicki v. Vopper, and about $188,000 in supplemental fees.

Boehner’s request for supplemental fees broke down like this: $75,000 for preparing, documenting, and communicating about the fee petition; $80,000 for researching, briefing, and hearing preparation relating to the fee issues; and $95,000 for opposing McDermott’s certiorari petition.

Hogan, finding little documentation to support the request, reduced the supplemental fees by 25 percent. All told, Jones Day walked away with a little more than $1 million in fees.
McDermott is good for it. In 2000, he created a legal defense fund to cover expenses related to the lawsuit.