LITTLE ROCK -- A schism, hinted at earlier this year, has fully emerged between the two attorneys who defeated Arkansas' same-sex marriage ban, with one lawyer denouncing the other's request for at least $345,825 in compensation as "unreasonable and excessive."
The lawyers, Jack Wagoner of Little Rock and Cheryl Maples of Searcy, are asking the court to order the state to compensate them for work in the case. Both say they devoted hundreds of hours to the litigation, which forced them to pass up paying jobs.
But in a nine-page brief, supplemented with a 10-page affidavit, defending his request for $95,748 to $141,880 in fees and costs, Wagoner asserts he and his firm did almost all of the work on the lawsuit first filed by Maples, who is seeking $345,825 to $686,998.
In the filing, Wagoner states Maples' request "appears unreasonable and excessive."
Describing Maples' initial request for fees, Wagoner states the original amount, $256,060, made him "uncomfortable."
"I did not understand how she could have billed that amount of time on the case. I could not attest to the reasonableness of the fees she was requesting," Wagoner states in his affidavit.
"I do not like filing this affidavit or filing a separate fee petition from my co-counsel. But I want to be clear that I cannot attest that her fee request is reasonable, and therefore I do not join in it or support it."
Defending his compensation request, Wagoner states he not only had to pass up work at his law firm, where he charges $295 an hour, but also paid three staff lawyers to work on the gay-marriage case.
"Every hour that I spent on this case was an hour of billable time that I gave up that will not be able to be used to support my wife, two daughters, three dogs and three cats. It literally cost me $295 for each hour I spent on this case," he wrote.
"Further, I paid the lawyers with my law firm by the hour for their work on the case. If not reimbursed for my fees and expenses, I will suffer a substantial out-of-pocket loss from devoting my time and effort to this case."
Fighting the marriage ban was important litigation "striking down an injustice perpetuated against an innocent group of people for no valid reason," Wagoner wrote.
Reached for comment Thursday night, Maples said she was surprised, "angry and hurt" by Wagoner's statements and denounced them as "lies" that "put a cloud over a beautiful piece of work."
"Nothing he says is true. He has allowed his anger to interfere with his good sense," she said. "I can absolutely back up every minute -- and then some -- of the [work] time I have claimed."
She and Wagoner worked independently, and he has no way of knowing what hours she put in or how hard she worked on the case, she said.
"This was my case. He called me and asked if he could join me. I opened my arms to him and let him in," she said, saying she would submit a written response to Wagoner's accusations in the coming days, possibly within a week.
Maples said Wagoner is still angry and blames her over a dispute that became public in April while the case was on appeal before the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Some of the plaintiffs reported they fired Wagoner during a dispute about how to proceed with an issue in the appeal.
Maples said Thursday the plaintiffs acted on their own and she had nothing to do with their decision.
One woman told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in the spring Wagoner refused to communicate with most of the plaintiffs and wouldn't recognize them on the street. Another woman said she was disappointed by infighting between the lawyers and Wagoner's position on the appeal issue was holding the case back.
Wagoner, who had other clients among the plaintiff pool, stayed on and capitulated on the issue, which concerned which of the state justices would decide the appeal.
Maples filed the lawsuit challenging the gay-marriage ban on July 1, 2013, five days after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages. She said the Arkansas lawsuit was the first of its kind in the country.
Wagoner says he first consulted with Maples about joining the effort four days later. He formally entered the case on Aug. 22, 2013, court filings show.
The lawsuit went through four alterations -- adding plaintiffs and refining arguments -- before the case was decided May 9, 2014, in favor of the plaintiffs -- 21 same-sex couples, nine of them already married.
The ruling by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza that legalized gay marriage in Arkansas was subsequently stayed a week later by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which agreed to decide on an appeal filed by state lawyers, but it never did.
The high court dismissed the appeal June 26, the same day the federal Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages.
Maples and Wagoner, who had applied to Piazza for compensation during the litigation, renewed their fee requests earlier this month.
Wagoner asserts he and three lawyers from his firm together devoted more than 404 hours to the case over the 11 months of litigation before Piazza, not including time spent in the 13 1/2 months the case was on appeal.
Maples, a solo practitioner, reports she devoted about 1,365 hours to the case beginning three months before she filed the lawsuit and including the appeal.
But the Arkansas attorney general's office, representing the state, disputes that the two lawyers should collect anything for their effort and has questioned the accuracy of their claims for compensation.
Thursday was the deadline for the plaintiffs' attorneys to submit their responses to that state challenge. Maples reportedly was preparing to submit her response to the state Thursday night.
NW News on 07/31/2015