A trial judge recently made an award of over $45,000 in attorney fees to a plaintiff who obtained documents under the common law right to know. This award is notable because the amount is substantially higher than a typical OPRA attorney fee award.

The amount is high for two reasons. First, the number of hours spent by plaintiff’s counsel, approximately 113, was unusually high for government records trial litigation. The judge concluded that the attorney reasonably spent so many hours, because the case was complex and involved novel issues and several court appearances.

Also, the judge substantially enhanced the attorney’s hourly rate. He set it at $400 per hour, rather than the $350 he had awarded in an unidentified prior OPRA case. The judge did not explain the basis for this decision, beyond saying that counsel’s credentials here were impressive.

This is the second time in the past several months that a judge has awarded an enhanced attorney fee in an OPRA case, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has said that such increases should rarely be granted to OPRA plaintiffs.

It is also significant that a $400 hourly rate is well above what is normally awarded in public records litigation. In the earlier case mentioned above, the plaintiff’s attorney, an experienced OPRA attorney, was granted an hourly rate of $315. The usual rate awarded in OPRA matters over the past several years has been in the $300 to $350 range.