Court Opinion

ID: 9861141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:46:50.195889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:27:20.190252
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the court’s opinion because I believe it correctly construes and applies section 775.5, The Code 1977, which governs the allowance of attorney fees in this case. Under section 775.5, the trial court must determine the necessity and value of the attorney’s services in awarding reasonable compensation. Here the trial court reduced plaintiff’s compensable time from eighty-nine to sixty hours on the basis of the necessity factor and from $35.00 per hour to $25.00 per hour on the basis of the criteria affecting value delineated in our cases.
Prominent among the criteria affecting value is the principle that section 775.5 does not purport to provide full compensation or to permit fees equal to those for like services in the community to nonindigents. See Woodbury County v. Anderson, 164 N.W.2d 129,132 (Iowa 1969). The lawyer is expected to make a financial sacrifice in defending indigents because of his professional responsibility to represent the defenseless and the oppressed.
Whether this sacrifice is demanded under section 815.7, The Code 1979, remains to be decided. In joining the court’s opinion, I do not wish to be understood as questioning the legislature’s right to provide for full compensation of court-appointed attorneys on the basis of customary charges for like services in the community to nonindigents.
REYNOLDSON, C. J., joins this special concurrence.