A federal judge awarded Friends of the River nearly half-a-million dollars in attorneys’ fees Friday after the conservation group prevailed in a Freedom of Information Act dispute that had dragged on for nine years.
The award — $491,676 in attorneys’ fees and $2,548 in costs — was less than what the organization asked for but nearly twice what the Army Corps of Engineers had proposed paying. The Corps was on the hook for at least some of the litigation costs after losing a FOIA lawsuit related to endangered species and dams on California’s Yuba River.
“Where, as here, the government has frustrated the policy of open government embodied in the [FOIA] and necessitated years of costly litigation, plaintiff needs and deserves adequate incentive to pursue their cause in court,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui stated, quoting from a key FOIA court precedent.
Faruqui cited, among other reasons for the award, the “public benefit” secured by the Friends of the River’s (FOR) batch of document requests.
