A federal judge on December 19 ordered
Idaho to pay more than $400,000 in legal fees stemming from the case
that toppled the state's ban on gay marriage.
Governor Butch Otter, a Republican,
called the original amount the six lawyers requested excessive and
had asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale to cut the figure in half.
Instead, she lowered the bill by about
10 percent, saying that the fees were mostly reasonable.
“Simply put, the case was neither
easy nor ordinary,” Dale
wrote. “It is therefore not surprising that plaintiffs
employed a team of experienced attorneys to divvy up the many legal
tasks.”
“Whatever the case lacked in
procedural complications or disputed issues of material fact, it
surely made up in legal complexity. After all, the case involved
constitutional issues of first impression not only in Idaho, but in
all district courts in the Ninth Circuit.”
Gay couples started marrying in Idaho
on October 15. Otter has appealed the ruling.
(Brief
provided by Equality Case Files.)