By: A newspaper has sued the law firm that represented the Town of Kitty Hawk in a public records dispute in which the state's Court of Appeals ruled the town improperly withheld documents.
A Dare County judge ordered the town in June to pay the Outer Banks Sentinel $75,000 to cover the legal costs it incurred in the three-year battle. But the newspaper says it needs another $50,000 from the Norfolk, Va.-based law firm Vandeventer Black, along with current and former attorneys, to cover all its costs.
"The reason the legal fees were so high were all the frivolous motions [the law firm] filed," Sandy Semans, the Sentinel's managing editor, said Tuesday. "It caused extraordinary expenses."
In awarding the newspaper $75,000, Superior Court Judge Richard Parker blamed the town's attorneys for using "totally unwarranted" tactics in defending the case.
Bryant McGann, a part of Vandeventer Black's management committee, said the firm respects the Sentinel's right to public documents, but questions the new motion for attorneys' fees.
"The Sentinel was awarded its reasonable attorneys fees [in the June hearing], so I don't understand its basis for asking for more fees," McGann said.
The Sentinel first filed suit in 2004 after town officials refused to release billing records of the town's contract attorney in 2003 and 2004. The newspaper also demanded copies of contracts, appraisals and other engineering documents, hoping to uncover whether the town was providing fair compensation for condemned properties.
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