KAYE AMENDS RICO CASE; DROPS CITY DEFENDANTS

City asks $34K for Foley & Lardner Work

Special to the Readers of www.milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

"Developer" Joseph A. Kaye filed an amended complaint on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 in his Federal RICO Civil case in federal court in Milwaukee which originally alleged corruption by Ald. Michael D'Amato and 11 others, including the City, the City Plan Commission, and city officials, in the sale of city-owned lots to developers Julilly W. Kohler and Lincoln Fowler.
The original case, filed on September 13th, 2005, was dismissed on July 11th, 2006, by U. S. District Judge J. P. Stadtmueller, who found it to be frivolous, and ordered sanctions against Kaye, including, as a deterrent, that he "reimburse the defendants for their reasonable and necessary attorney's fees." Kaye appealed, and the appeals court remanded it to Stadtmueller on technical issues in Devcember, 2007. In February, Stadtmueller gave Kaye 30 days to file an amended complaint, and allowed the City, Kohler and other defendants an opportunity to re-submit their attorney bills.
The amended complaint in case 05-C-0982 drops seven defendants from the case, including the city. The remaining defendants are D'Amato, Kohler, Fowler, Shirley Ferguson, and Lisa Christopherson. The latter two were officers of the defunct East Village Association.
Today, Friday, March 14th, 2008, the City defendants renewed their motion for the award of attorneys' fees and expenses from Kaye.
The city's attorney, Foley & Lardner, argues "awarding all attorneys' fees and costs here will serve both the purposes of compensation and deterrence," noting that the costs were imposed "solely as a result of Mr. Kaye's ill-researched and frivolous complaint." Kaye's accusations "were (and remain) unfounded, reckless and defamatory."
Referring to the amended complaint, the letter says, "in it, he drops many parties from the initial suit. ... This is an implicit admission that these parties were wrongfully and recklessly accused the first time, which simple research would have shown."
The amended complaint is more coherent than the original document, but still is fatally flawed, according to Foley & Lardner, citing Stadtmueller's July, 2006 dismissal in which he said, "Kaye should have known that his RICO claims had no legal basis."

SO, HOW MUCH DO THE LAWYERS GET?

The defendants ask for $34,254.45 to compensate the Foley & Lardner law firm for its time and expenses. Lead attorney Andrew J. Wronski spent 56 hours toiling over the case, and charged the cut-rate fee of $325 for his time, "which represents a substantial discount from Mr. Wronski's usual and customary hourly rate for complex litigation matters."
His partner Thomas J. Schreiner, Jr. had ultimate responsibility for oversight of the litigation, and he spent 7 hours going over Wronski's stuff at $475 per hour. That, too, represents a "substantial discount from Mr. Schreiner's usual and customary hourly rate."
Apparently the only staffer pulling straight time pay at Wisconsin's oldest and most venerable discount law firm was librarian Linda Rivas, who billed 4.5 hours at $70 per hour.
Kohler's lawyer submitted a bill today for slightly over $3,000.
--Michael Horne

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