Court Opinion

ID: 9528037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:32.149147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:25.523613
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
with whom Shearing, J., agrees,
dissenting:
I respectfully submit that the Majority has not gotten over what it calls the “threshold issue” of Crowley’s failure to sue the proper defendant. As the Majority recognizes, “the district court and the county should have been made parties to these proceedings.” This ends the case as far as I am concerned.
I agree that the legislature “has provided a statutory basis for compensating court-appointed attorneys”; but this does not mean that an attorney cannot agree to accept a different scale of compensation, as was done here.
NRS 7.125 provides that an appointed attorney “is entitled to receive a fee . . ., $60 per hour.” Certainly, this statute authorized the payment of attorneys at that rate, which was undoubtedly the purpose of the statute. There is, however, absolutely nothing in the statute which precludes the attorney and the court or county from contracting for services under different terms. Just because the statute gives attorneys the right to be compensated at a prescribed hourly rate, that in no way prohibits them from agreeing to compensation at a lower rate or under different terms.
The Majority characterizes NRS 7.125 as “a comprehensive scheme for the regulation of a particular subject” which preempts “any conflicting local regulation.” I believe that this is a mischaracterization of both the statute and the local action taken by the district court. The statute merely authorizes payment to attorneys at a specified maximum rate and sets the maximum amounts per action. Setting maximum rates of compensation does not provide a “comprehensive scheme.” The local action is not a *607“regulation” but rather a contract freely entered into by the parties for a lower rate of compensation under terms that are mutually beneficial to the parties. This is no encroachment on any state statute either as to its letter or its spirit.
During the period that Crowley was under contract, his compensation was governed by the contract. Thereafter, in the absence of contract, he is entitled to be paid at the statutory rate. There is nothing, however, in law or equity which requires the courts to appoint any particular attorney so his claims of civil rights violations are without merit.
I think that the district court was correct in the way it ruled in this case; so, I would affirm the summary judgment.