Montgomery County Orphan’s Court Judge Stanley R. Ott, the presiding judge in the unsuccessful challenge to the Barnes Foundation’s move to Center City in Philadelphia has upheld his award of sanctions against the plaintiffs challenging the move. After a recent hearing, the judge awarded the Barnes $25,000 in attorneys' fees from the Friends of the Barnes, and a separate $15,000 form a lawyer who had filed a challenge in his own right.
Attorneys’ fees are generally not awarded in the American court system, unless a contract or statute provides. The other exception is that most courts have some provision to award legal fees as a sanction and a deterrent against cases that the court finds to be objectively frivolous (a generalized description).
Here, the Barnes persuaded the judge that the appeal to “new” evidence spotlighted in the movie The Art of the Steal that was behind the most recent challenge was not, in fact, new, and that the renewed challenge to the relocation was thus unreasonable.
Interestingly, the judge awarded a flat $25,000, rather than the $64,269.41 in fees that the museum actually incurred. Based on past experience, this strikes me as the judge—who made no findings of fact or further comment in awarding that amount—giving both sides a bit of a break. An award of fees is extremely rare (kudos to the Barnes’s team), but paring the number down by a third is certainly an easier pill to swallow for the plaintiffs than the full amount. It probably dissuades either side from appealing, too.
