Tag: jock yellott

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Legal wrangling: City argues against $604K fees for Confederate statue attorneys 

A few Confederate supporters and protestors met outside the courthouse on Wednesday. Staff photo.

Extensive and lengthy cross-examinations were heard in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday as  lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the city to prevent it from removing statues of two Confederate generals broke down why they believe the city owes over $604,000 in attorney fees and litigation costs. 

The lawsuit was filed by the Monument Fund, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and 11 individual plaintiffs two-and-a-half years ago, after City Council in 2017 voted to remove statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

A day after ruling against the city’s interpretation of the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment and issuing a permanent injunction that stipulates Charlottesville cannot remove the Confederate statues, Judge Richard Moore heard the testimony of two witnesses for the plaintiffs about attorney fees.

Jock Yellott is the executive director of the Monument Fund and has performed the roles of both a plaintiff and paralegal in this case. He submitted to the court a detailed packet that outlined all the legal costs accrued by the plaintiffs and explained how they settled on $604,000. 

The Monument Fund and Sons of Confederate Veterans have already paid a combined $87,500 to their attorneys, so they’re seeking reimbursement of those payments, with the remaining $516,500 going directly to the lawyers.

Yellott was cross-examined by Chief Deputy City Attorney Lisa Robertson, who spent several hours going over the bill line by line and asking Yellott to verify specific tasks he fulfilled, ranging from case research to collating papers. 

Moore stopped Robertson midway through her questioning to inquire about the significance of her thorough review of the information. She insisted that it was her right to do so and the information she was focused on would be referred to in her closing arguments.

After Yellott finally stepped down from the stand and court took a break for lunch, Moore heard the testimony of Charles Lollar, a Norfolk attorney who was presented as an expert witness on legal fees. Lollar told the court he found the rates charged by the plaintiffs’ attorneys to be “necessary and appropriate” for the amount of work required for this case. For his testimony, Lollar billed the plaintiffs $12,000—a figure included in their request for the $604,000.

“Without these services…those monuments wouldn’t be there,” Lollard said.

Some of the other contributors to that total include the bills of Braxton Puryear and Ralph Main, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, who charged $300 and $310 per hour, respectively, for their services. University of Richmond law professor Kevin Walsh, who specializes in constitutional law and assisted earlier in the case, charged $700 an hour. Yellott also requested $160 an hour for the work he did as a paralegal.

The 10 individual plaintiffs—one died last year—are also seeking $500 each in compensatory damages. Eight of them testified Wednesday about the emotional distress caused by their inability to see the statues for the 188-day period they were covered in tarps at the direction of the city.

 Moore is expected to hear final arguments Friday before making a decision on the amount owed in damages and attorney fees.

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Judge explains: Motions still to be ruled upon in Confederate statue lawsuit

Plaintiffs Frank Earnest, Jock Yellott, and Dickie Tayloe leave Charlottesville Circuit Court after the latest hearing in their lawsuit to keep Confederate statues in city parks. staff photos

Judge Rick Moore got one big issue out of the way in the two-years-long lawsuit against the city and City Council for its 2017 vote to remove statues of Confederate generals: The monuments of generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are indeed war memorials under state code, which prohibits their removal.

In court May 1, he started off the status hearing by explaining his April 25 ruling, because of misunderstandings that he said had occurred.

“It was a critical decision, but it is not the end of the court case,” said Moore, who took the opportunity to note the two boxes of case files and how busy he is to explain why it has taken so long to get rulings on the motions that have been filed. “This is just one case. I’m just one judge. This is an important case, but not the only one I have.”

The lawsuit was filed by 13 plaintiffs, including the Monument Fund and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who allege councilors Wes Bellamy, Bob Fenwick and Kristin Szakos unlawfully voted to remove a statue of Lee donated to the city by Paul Goodloe McIntire. The vote to remove Jackson was added to the suit after August 12, 2017, when councilors Mike Signer and Kathy Galvin joined the unanimous vote to oust the Confederates.

All of the councilors were in court except for Fenwick, as were a number of the plaintiffs, including Frank Earnest with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who has traveled from Virginia Beach for hearings over the past two years, Monument Fund organizer Jock Yellott, and Dickie Tayloe, whose First Family of Virginia was once one of the largest slave owners in the state.

Moore did issue a ruling, and denied a plaintiffs’ motion to keep the defense from using equal protection under the 14th Amendment as part of its case. That argument says because the Civil War was fought primarily over slavery, the statues are part of an effort to intimidate African Americans.

“Equal protection being constitutional, it would be hard for me to say you’re not going to argue that,” he said. “I’m not in a position to say the defendants cannot prevail on that.”

Yet to be ruled upon is a motion to determine whether councilors had statutory immunity when they voted to remove the statues, and Moore said that’s next on his list.

Plaintiffs attorney Braxton Puryear complained that councilors had not provided depositions or discovery that would help him determine whether they acted with gross negligence when they voted to remove the statues, a key in determining immunity.

Legal powerhouse Jones Day is representing pro bono all of the councilors except Fenwick, and attorney Esha Mankoti said that’s why the issue needs to be decided immediately, because if councilors have immunity, their emails would be protected as well.

“That argument has the flavor of a circular argument.” said Moore, who said he sympathized with the plaintiffs, who have been asking for discovery for two years. “You don’t postpone the depositions,” he said.

He said the emails they sent each other the night before the vote could be the “smoking gun” if councilors said, “We can do what we want.”

Still, the judge wasn’t ready to say council’s actions amounted to gross negligence.

Moore also needs to decide on the city’s argument that a 1997 law that prohibited the removal of war memorials is not retroactive, as well as what issues can go before the jury in the September trial.

Outside the courthouse, plaintiff Buddy Weber felt “very good” about the recent ruling that the statues are war memorials.

However, activist Ben Doherty described Moore’s ruling as buying into the Lost Cause narrative because it neutralizes what is “overt white supremacy.”

Attorney Janice Redinger, who is not involved in the case, says, “I think there’s a chilling effect that these legislators may be personally liable for passing an ordinance. Look at all the unconstitutional laws passed by the General Assembly.”

 

 

 

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Legal front: Lawsuit filed to halt removal of General Lee statue

Defenders of the statue of General Robert E. Lee include a great-nephew of sculptor Henry Shrady.
Staff Photo

Nearly a dozen citizens filed a not-unexpected lawsuit and an injunction today in Charlottesville Circuit Court to stop the removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee and any further tampering with Lee and Jackson parks, both donated by Paul Goodloe McIntire. The plaintiffs include descendants from the park donor and the sculptor, as well as the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

After heated debates on Confederate monuments over the past year and the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces to study the issue, City Council voted 3-2 February 6 to remove the Lee statue and rename Lee Park. At that meeting, councilors noted the likelihood of litigation.

And although Mayor Mike Signer and Councilor Kathy Galvin did not join fellow councilors Wes Bellamy, Bob Fenwick and Kristin Szakos in voting to dispatch General Lee, they are named in the suit, which asks for at least $500 in damages from each councilor and $100,000 apiece in punitive damages.

Except for two members of Sons of Confederate Veterans—Anthony M. Griffin and Britton Franklin Earnest from Smithfield and Virginia Beach, respectively—the other nine individual plaintiffs are local residents.

Another organization, The Monument Fund Inc., a nonprofit formed last fall, joined the Sons in the suit. The Monument Fund is aligned with a trust, Friends of C’ville Monuments, which can do the lobbying that the 501(3)(c) can’t, explains trustee Jock Yellott, who is also a plaintiff.

In addition, Yellott is executive director of The Monument Fund, which started raising money in October, “when it became clear there was a threat to the monuments,” he says. Yellott declines to say how much the nonprofit has raised—”That’s like telling the opposition how many cannonballs you have”—but says it’s fair to say the number of donors is in the hundreds.

Four of the plaintiffs—Fred Payne, Buddy Weber, Lloyd Smith and Yellott—are attorneys.

Several of the plaintiffs—Edward D. Tayloe II, Weber and Smith—are veterans and have “a special interest in the protection and preservation of war memorials and monuments located in the city,” according to the complaint.

Plaintiff Betty Jane Franklin Phillips is a “collateral descendant” of McIntire, which means she’s descended from his brother or sister. She represents the interests of the McIntire family, according to the suit. And the great-nephew of sculptor Henry Shrady, Albemarle resident Edward Bergen Fry, is also a plaintiff.

Other plaintiffs are Virginia Amiss and Stefanie Marshall, who is chairman of The Monument Fund and has “personally expended money and effort in cleaning and removing graffiti from the Lee monument in 2011 and in 2015,” according to the complaint.

What the plaintiffs have in common, besides their interests in Confederate monuments and history, is their interest in the law, says Weber. “I think everyone ought to be concerned about that, when elected officials don’t care about the law.”

The suit notes that monuments and memorials from “the War Between the States” are protected by Virginia code, which makes it unlawful to disturb or interfere with such. “There’s a monument protection law that says they can’t do what they did,” says Weber.

“Our first goal is to get an injunction,” says Weber, to stop any potential destruction while the case is being litigated.

Following its February 6 vote, council instructed city staff to come back in 60 days with a range of options for moving forward to eject the Lee statue and rename the park. At that meeting, Fenwick said he’d welcome a lawsuit because the state’s Confederate legacy is an issue facing localities throughout Virginia. “For the sake of the state, it should be litigated as soon as possible,” he said.

Signer declined to comment on pending litigation, and referred C-VILLE to City Attorney Craig Brown, who says he has not read the complaint.

Monument Fund v. City of Charlottesville-complaint-2017