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A Gary man previously awarded $25.5 million in a federal lawsuit against the city of Hammond and a former police officer has now been awarded more than $410,000 in attorney fees and costs.
Indiana Northern District Court Senior Judge Theresa L. Springmann on Tuesday ordered the northwestern Indiana city and retired Hammond police Capt. Michael Solan to pay James Hill Jr. $391,430 in attorney fees and $19,251.66 in costs, for a total of $410,681.66. That’s less than the $584,872.86 Hill had requested.
Hill filed a federal civil lawsuit in 2010 after spending 18 years in prison for crimes from which he was later exonerated. He had been convicted of rape, unlawful deviate conduct and robbery in connection with an attack against a gas station clerk in 1980.
A post-conviction court vacated Hill’s convictions in 2009 after DNA testing in 2001 showed that biological evidence found at the scene of the crimes did not match Hill. His federal lawsuit alleged police, including Solan, withheld evidence.
Last November, a federal jury deliberated for about three hours before awarding Hill $25 million in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. His co-defendant, Larry Mayes, previously won a $9 million verdict that was later reduced to $4.5 million.
Hill’s request for fees and costs related to work performed by six attorneys and one law firm: attorneys Scott King, Russell Brown, Lakeisha Murdaugh, Mitchell Peters, Robert Harper and Kevin Vanderground, and the law firm King & Murdaugh. He claimed his legal team worked 2,189.8 hours on the case.
Of those hours, 1,500 were attributable to Peters, Hill claimed. But Springmann reduced that amount to 750 based on insufficient documentation, lowering his fee from $300,000 to $150,000.
Springmann also reduced the amount of Hill’s requested costs from $43,442.86 to $19,251.66 based on experts who were barred from testifying.
“Under 28 U.S.C. § 1821, a witness is entitled to a $40 per diem fee for days spent in deposition or trial, along with expenses for travel and subsistence, but otherwise ‘a party’s own expert witness fee generally is not recoverable as a cost,’” Springmann wrote, citing Lane v. Person, 40 F.4th 813 (7th Cir. 2022).
The case is James Hill v. City of Hammond, Indiana and Michael Solan, 2:10-cv-393.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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