Allan Appel photo
City attorney Roderick Williams confers with city-contracted lawyers Andrew Cohen and Nancy Mendel.
The city’s tab hit six figures for outside attorneys to help fight child lead poisoning lawsuits — and that doesn’t include two more months of stepped-up courtroom battles not yet billed.
The city Corporation Counsel’s office passed along those bills to the New Haven Independent in response to a Connecticut Freedom of Information Act request about how much the city has been charged by outside attorneys for legal consulting and defense work in recent lead-related lawsuits. Despite the costly outside help, the city has been consistently losing motion after motion and receiving rebukes from judge after judge.
The bills show that, between June 11, 2018, and June 26, 2019, the city has received legal bills totaling $118,477 from the local law firm Winnick Ruben Hoffnung Peabody & Mendel, LLC.
While the specific work performed by those Winnick attorneys has been redacted from the city invoices and bill analysis reports provided to the Independent, all of the bills indicate that the fees are related to lead litigation.
The date range also maps onto the three latest lawsuits that legal aid has filed against the city over the Health Department’s inadequate enforcement of local lead paint inspection and hazard abatement laws.
Those cases are Elijah Hall v. City of New Haven, Tray Jemar Mims v. City of New Haven, and the on-going class-action suit, Nyriel Smith v. City of New Haven. In all of those cases, the presiding judge has ruled against the city and in favor of legal aid and their lead-poisoned child plaintiffs.
“In 2016, there were 228 children reported in New Haven with blood levels in the five to nine (micrograms per deciliter) range. That number dropped to 171 in 2017,” city spokesperson Laurence Grotheer told the Independent in a written statement, “and then it dropped again to 104 in 2018. Despite progress documented by these figures, lead-related lawsuits spiked this past year, exceeding the caseload capacity of Office of Corporation Counsel attorneys to defend them. Adding to the cost for outside counsel is the extremely technical nature of lead cases, with requirements for refined inspections, scientific expertise, and preparation for a range of mitigation and abatement options.”
According to the bills provided to the Independent, the city has paid $59,912 of those outside legal fees to date. Those charges are related to five invoices submitted by Winnick attorneys between June 11, 2018 and May 15, 2019.
The bills cover 224.5 hours of legal work performed by Winnick’s Andrew Cohen and Nancy Mendel, who charged $300 per hour and $226 per hour respectively.
The latest invoice, which Winnick attorneys submitted to the city on July 8, shows a steep increase in outside legal support between May 16 and June 26, after legal aid filed its class action child lead poisoning lawsuit against the city on May 8.
That bill charges the city $58,565.30 for 200.9 hours of work performed by Cohen and Mendel over less than five weeks.
In that time, Cohen and Mendel took prominent positions defending the city in a June 7 courtroom hearing before Judge Cordani, and also worked on a number of legal briefs leading up to and following that hearing.
The bill shows that Cohen and Mendel continued to charge their same hourly rates of $300 and $226, respectively.
Click here to download a copy of that latest invoice.
Costs Keep Climbing
The bills provided to the Independent by the city don’t cover is what Winnick’s attorneys plan to charge the city for legal work performed since June 26.
They also don’t show how much the Boston-based firm LeClairRyan LLC will be charging the city for the legal briefings and courtroom defense provided by its attorneys, Daniel Blake and Elizabeth Acee.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Catherine LaMarr confirmed for the city that no lead-related legal bills have been submitted to the city since the July 8 invoice.
Since June 26, according to the state judicial docket for the class action case, city-hired outside attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the class-action suit, a memorandum in support of that motion, a memorandum in opposition to legal aid’s motion for class certification, and a reply in support of opposition to class certification. Outside attorneys also argued in defense of the city during an Aug. 6 court hearing.
Meanwhile, the class action case continues, with Cordani recently having given the city until Sept. 6 to file a response to legal aid’s motion that the judge revise his previous order and allow lead-poisoned children in federally subsidized housing to be plaintiffs in the case.
Previous lead coverage:
• City Plan Passes On Lead Law
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Judge Denies City’s Motion To Dismiss Lead Suit
• City, Legal Aid Clash In Court On Lead
• New Lead Proposal “Eviscerates” Mandate
• Lead Cleanup Pricetag: $91M?
• Lead Panel’s Advice Rejected
• Lead Paint Chief Retires
• Lead Paint Fight Rejoined
• Harp Switches Gears On Lead
• Motion Accuses City Of Contempt
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Briefs Debate “Lead Poisoning”
• New Haven: Another Flint?
• Harp Administration Admits Relaxing Lead Standard To Save $$
• Class-Action Suit Slams City On Lead
• City, Legal Aid Clash On Lead Paint
• Legal Aid To City: Get Moving On Lead Paint Law
• 100+ Tenants Caught In Lead Limbo
• 2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint
• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead
Why doesn't Harp tell her city attorneys to settle this case without outside counsel? Total incompetence peppered with stubbornness.