Award of Attorney’s Fees Following State Appeal of Pretrial Order Withstands Statutory Challenge

State v. Williams, Minn.S.Ct., 2/5/2014.  This is not really a criminal case.  It’s about turf, the court’s and the legislature’s.  Oh, and money.

The state appealed the trial court’s ruling suppressing evidence.  The court of appeals reversed the order.  Counsel for Mr. Williams then requested attorney’s fees for thirty some hours of work at $120.00 an hour.  The state said that was okay, except for the last nine plus hours which should be paid at only $50.00 an hour.

The state relied upon a 2012 statute that instructed chief judges to confer with designated stakeholders and then set a reasonable hourly rate for attorney’s fees in appeals by the state.  The chief judge set the rate at fifty bucks an hour.  Mr. Williams’ lawyer did about nine hours of work on the appeal after the judge set that rate.

The state’s first argument was that this statute stripped the court of the ability to review the hourly rates that district courts establish.  Chief Justice Gildea, writing for a unanimous court, was having  none of that.  Because this statute says nothing about appellate review the court is not about to assume that the legislature took that review away in this instance. 

Turning to the merits, here the district court made no record of just how this fifty bucks rate came into existence.  So, absent a record, the court can’t ascertain whether low balling the hourly rate was an abuse of discretion.  As a result, the trial court’s award of attorney’s fees at the $120.00 hourly rate stands.  Whether an appellate court can upset an hourly rate set by the district court – either because it’s an unreasonable rate or because the record doesn’t support it – is left for another day.