6-figure legal bill kept rising as ACHD fought Smoky Davis owners over demolished store
The Ada County Highway District acknowledged last summer that it had spent more than a quarter-million dollars on outside lawyers to fight a compensation claim by the owners of the Smoky Davis smoked-meat store that ACHD tore down.
Newly released records show those legal bills have topped $400,000. That’s in addition to the $1.8 million the district agreed in February to pay Smoky Davis — seven times as much as ACHD originally offered.
The latest records were revealed in response to an open-records request by the Idaho Statesman after the $1.8 million settlement was announced. Last summer’s information came after a Boise man took the district to court over it.
The details of the legal bills are still unavailable to the public. As it did last summer, the highway district blacked out almost every detail in 159 pages of legal bills except for the amounts billed.
The district was billed at least $414,439 in fees for attorneys at Holland & Hart, a Denver law firm with a Boise office. The settlement plus the legal fees will cost taxpayers more than $2.2 million.
Spokeswoman Natalie Shaver said in an email that the Smoky Davis case was “one of the most expensive litigation cases that ACHD has experienced.”
“The legal costs were necessary in light of the complex legal issues involved,” she said. “There were significant costs resulting from numerous court motions, a delayed trial date, extensive discovery and numerous experts.”
The bills show that the firm has billed ACHD monthly since November 2017, with the exception of November 2018.
The highest bill was in January 2019, when the firm billed ACHD $130,938. Recent bills include a $57,176 charge in January and $38,019 in February.
Only the totals of each monthly bill are not blacked out, making it impossible to see what the hourly rates charged were. Shaver said the average rate was $187.50 per hour, which would mean attorneys billed for more than 2,200 hours.
Shaver said that’s actually lower than what ACHD pays on average to Holland & Hart for other cases — for 2019 and early 2020 billings, she said Holland & Hart’s average hourly rate was $200.32.
Why bring in outside attorneys?
ACHD employs three full-time attorneys, who Shaver said provide “proactive legal advice” to the ACHD’s director, commission and staff. Those lawyers do not handle litigation, which is why the district hired Holland & Hart to handle the case.
The district has hired outside counsel for litigation for at least the last 20 years, Shaver said, allowing it to use lawyers with a wide variety of expertise.
“During the last 20 years, ACHD has reduced its legal fees significantly with the current practice of proactive legal advice and training and assigning outside legal work to lawyers who are experts in condemnation law and litigation,” Shaver said.
The records show no outstanding balance beyond the February 2020 bill. Shaver said the February bill was the final one for this lawsuit.
The Smoky Davis lawsuit
The Smoky Davis lawsuit involved eminent domain, which is the government’s right to take private property for public use as long as the owners are paid.
The U.S. and state constitutions require government entities to pay fair value for property they take through eminent domain. If an agreement cannot be reached, ACHD must sue the property owner for a court ruling on what a fair value is for the property.
ACHD used eminent domain to claim the land the store was on in 2017. The district tore down the store as part of the intersection expansion at State Street, Veterans Memorial Parkway and 36th Street.
At the time, ACHD offered Gary and Dee Davis $248,260 for the property, located at 3914 W. State. The Davises rejected that offer, contending that ACHD should pay for a new building on the rest of their land.
In a September blog post on ACHD’s news site, officials wrote that the district did “not believe that the Davises are entitled to windfall that would give them more than what they had.” It said the Davises were asking for more than $2.6 million to cover the taking of property and two buildings as well as the reconstruction of a “new and improved building.”
The $1.8 million settlement is payment not only for the land taken but also the “resulting damages,” which include business damages, relocation costs and re-establishment costs, according to the settlement. That amount includes the $248,260 already paid. ACHD commissioners approved the settlement on Feb. 19.
Shaver said ACHD is “pleased to have reached a negotiated resolution of the lawsuit.“
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