Worcester, Lowell face high fees after losing lawsuits on unconstitutional panhandling ordinances
The lawyers who fought to repeal unconstitutional panhandling restrictions in Worcester and Lowell are seeking to collect more than $1.5 million in fees and costs from the cities, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, along with Boston-based law firm Goodwin Procter LLP, have asked a judge to award them $1,026,223 from Worcester and $736,466 from Lowell. Worcester officials called the fees “outrageous,’’ and Lowell officials said they estimated attorneys’ fees should come to less than $100,000, the Telegram reported.
The Worcester lawsuit was filed on behalf of two homeless people in January 2013 after city ordinances banned “aggressive’’ panhandling, standing or stopping on traffic islands, and soliciting in certain public spaces. In November, a federal judge struck down the ordinances on the grounds that they infringed upon an individual’s right to free speech. A judge made a similar ruling in Lowell.
A lawyer for Goodwin Procter told the Telegram that the firm had already discounted its rates by 20 percent in the Worcester case, and that much of the fee would be donated to the ACLU of Massachusetts.
Matthew Segal, the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said that the organization tried first to convince both cities not to pass the ordinances before pursuing the legal action that accrued the pricey fees.
“We really tried to give the city every opportunity to do the right thing without incurring any liability,’’ he told the Telegram.
Read the full Telegram story here.
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