The Office of the Attorney General is opposing the request of U.S. Navy veteran David J. Radich and his wife, Li-Rong, for payment for their two lawyers in the total amount of $103,913.83 for attorney\u2019s fees and expenses for prevailing in their lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the CNMI gun\u2019s control law. <\/p>\n
Assistant attorney general James M. Zarones said plaintiffs Radich couple are requesting fees that could not reasonably be billed to a private client.<\/p>\n
Zarones said plaintiffs also failed to provide the U.S. District Court for the NMI with evidence of the prevailing market rates in the NMI.<\/p>\n
Zarones is counsel for former Department of Public Safety commissioner James C. Deleon Guerrero and Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson, who are sued in their official capacity by the Radich couple.<\/p>\n
Attorneys David G. Sigale and Daniel T. Guidotti are asking the court to award them attorney\u2019s fees in the amount of $80,325 and $15,347.50, respectively. The lawyers are also requesting payment of $8,241.33 in costs.<\/p>\n
In the defendants\u2019 opposition, Zarones said plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys are requesting fees for clerical work and work that should have been performed by paralegals.<\/p>\n
Zarones said it was unreasonable for an attorney billing $500 an hour to spend .7 hours drafting the civil cover sheet.<\/p>\n
Zarones said it was unreasonable for an attorney billing $500 an hour to spend time drafting an entry of appearance.<\/p>\n
He said the government should not be required to pay attorney fees for conversations with third parties.<\/p>\n
Zarones noted that on Nov. 18, 2012, Sigale traveled 2.4 hours to meet with an individual named Gray Peterson and that the meeting lasted an hour.<\/p>\n
He said Sigale traveled again 2.5 hours to meet Peterson on Nov. 23, 2013, and that the meeting lasted an hour.<\/p>\n
Zarones said Sigale discussed logistics and possibility of bringing a lawsuit in the first meeting and again discussed necessary steps for bringing a possible lawsuit in the second meeting.<\/p>\n
Zarones said Peterson is not an attorney providing representation to plaintiffs in this case, nor there was any records indicate that Peterson had any relevance to this case.<\/p>\n
Zarones said the government should not be required to pay for the duplicative effort of researching and drafting four separate complaints in this case.<\/p>\n
He said Sigale should not receive $10,500 for his travel to the CNMI because the original complaint and motion for summary judgment were defective.<\/p>\n
Zarones said the memorandum in support of attorney fees is a cut-and-paste document that fails to provide the court with the information necessary to establish the reasonable hourly rate to be applied.<\/p>\n
Zarones said Sigale represents that he spent five hours researching and drafting a memorandum in support of his fee request.
\nHowever, Zarones said, the memorandum is nothing more than a copy and paste of a memorandum Sigale filed in a previous lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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