Court Opinion

ID: 9746473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:18:11.000514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:13.585606
License: Public Domain

*159Justice LaVECCHIA,
concurring and dissenting in part.
Although I concur in the determination of the Court to award counsel for NJDPM one hundred percent of his lodestar, I cannot agree that a percentage enhancement of counsel’s fee (already determined to be a reasonable hourly rate of reimbursement) is appropriate under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), N.J.S.A 47:1A-1 to -13.
The majority emphasizes that fee enhancement is not to be an expected award and that it is not “preordained” for a successful OPRA litigant. Ante at 157, 883 A.2d at 340. However, in my view, the majority’s judgment is not sufficiently discriminating in its evaluation of the appropriateness of fee enhancement in this OPRA litigation. I believe that the majority intends to discourage the award of enhanced fees for OPRA plaintiffs; however, it misapplies its own rule in this appeal. The use of an enhancement to a fee award under OPRA ought to be rare and compellingly justified. This OPRA appeal does not afford such justification.
The Department of Corrections correctly argues that this case did not pose an economic contingency risk to counsel and his client that was remotely close to that which led to approval of enhancement of the fee paid under the fee-shifting provision of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-27.1, in Rendine v. Pantzer, 141 N.J. 292, 661 A.2d 1202 (1995). Rendine involved a traditional contingency fee case. That, however, is not what we have here.
Here, a public interest attorney employed full time by the Fan-Share Housing Center (FSHC) took on the instant litigation on behalf of NJDPM, a pro bono organization in which he has served for years in a leadership capacity and as its pro bono legal counsel. Although it is admirable that counsel worked beyond his normal workweek on this matter, it did not create a compelling economic risk for counsel or his pro bono client. Throughout, counsel remained employed full time. The risk that he might not have all or any of his time on this case reimbursed under an OPRA fee-shifting application does not equate to the degree of risk posed to *160an attorney retained on a contingency basis to pursue a difficult LAD action. The risk here was no different than the typical litigation risk posed under fee-shifting situations permitted under our Court Rules or pursuant to contract. The shifted fee, to be paid by the losing party, is -a reimbursement of the attorney’s reasonable fees. There is no enhanced “bonus” amount added to the attorney’s fee. Similarly, in my view, there should be no sweetening of the reimbursed fees paid to cover the counsel expenses incurred by a successful OPRA litigant.
That said, although I have severe misgivings that enhancement should ever be allowed in an OPRA fee-shift award, I would leave open for the time being the question whether there might arise a sufficiently compelling circumstance to justify enhancement of an attorney’s fee under a reasonableness assessment. If in some extraordinary setting a fee enhancement under OPRA might be eompellingly justified—and I am hard pressed to speculate on when such a circumstance could arise—a court should exercise restraint and keep any enhancement to a minimum. By necessity, an OPRA fee award can only be paid from public funds. That fact should be counterbalanced against any determination to enhance an already reasonable attorney’s rate and should serve as strong incentive to keep the enhancement of fees in OPRA litigation rare, and the amount of any enhancement, should it ever be justified, small. Finally, I would add, because the majority opinion does not provide the trial courts with guidance on how to approach OPRA fee applications when the OPRA litigation is being used as an adjunct to other litigation, that the courts should be vigilant to prevent OPRA litigation, with its concomitant allowance of a reasonable fee award, from being manipulated into a mechanism to shift the costs of discovery from one party to another.
In sum, I respectfully dissent from the award of an enhancement of counsel’s hourly fee rate that already has been determined to be reasonable in amount. I concur fully in the determination to award NJDPM counsel one hundred percent of his lodestar in view of his substantial success in this matter.
*161Justice RIVERA-SOTO joins in this opinion.
For affirmance as modified/remandment—Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, ZAZZALI, ALBIN, and WALLACE—5.
Concurring in part/dissenting in part—Justices LaVECCHIA and RIVERA-SOTO—2.