NW Democrat-Gazette

Court petitioned for attorney fees in suit

BILL BOWDEN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

HUNTSVILLE — The lawyers who won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Huntsville School District want the defendant to pay them $13,912.50 in attorneys’ fees.

In a court filing on Monday, Joey McCutchen of Fort Smith asked the judge to award attorney fees to him and his law partner, Stephen Napurano.

According to the filing, the two men worked 55.65 hours on the case, and they believe the rate of $250 an hour is “extremely reasonable.” That would bring the total to $13,912.50.

They represented Benjamin Rightsell of Witter, who sued the School District for violating both the open-meetings and open-records provisions of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act on multiple occasions, McCutchen wrote in Monday’s motion.

“Only after a lawsuit was filed did the Defendants admit to ten FOIA violations,” wrote McCutchen.

The case involved sexual assault allegations among boys on the junior high school basketball team.

On May 11, after a private review of the documents in question, Madison County Circuit Judge Doug Martin found that the School District withheld some responsive documents that should have been provided to Rightsell under his Freedom of Information Act request.

In his order, Martin wrote that McCutchen may submit a motion for attorneys’ fees and the School District shall pay the plaintiffs the $190 fee of filing the lawsuit.

School officials had already admitted to several violations of the Freedom of Information Act concerning public meetings.

The admitted violations included failures to give public notice of public meetings, failures to give notice of disciplinary hearings, failures

to record meetings and failures to properly maintain recordings of meetings, according to McCutchen’s motion.

Parents can request that disciplinary hearings be held in private, but the board must reconvene to vote in public.

The district refused to produce any of the requested records and cited the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act and the Arkansas Child Maltreatment Act, according to McCutchen’s motion.

“We consider this matter to be of significant public interest not only because of the nature and gravity of the Defendants’ repeated FOIA violations, but also because of the Defendants’ lack of transparency and apparent attempts to circumvent the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act,” wrote McCutchen.

Some of the student discipline hearings at the center of the case regarded allegations that surfaced early last year.

In response to those allegations, school administrators conducted an investigation under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

According to a “Title IX Sexual Harassment Determination of Responsibility” report completed after the internal investigation, the accused players had placed their “genitals in the faces” of several eighth- and ninthgrade boys who were being restrained by other boys in the locker room after games. The practice — called “baptism” — occurred several times during the basketball season, as well as the previous year, according to the report.

Two boys admitted to “baptizing” other players, according to the report. They were ultimately expelled from school for a semester.

Other boys were cited in the report as helping restrain the victims while they were being “baptized.” Because they are underage and students, none of the boys’ names were used in the report.

McCutchen has also filed a lawsuit in federal court over the Title IX allegations.

Norhtwest Arkansas

en-us

2022-05-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.nwaonline.com/article/281964611340691

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