Taxpayers may pay in 7 figures for Boise State’s legal fees in the Big City Coffee case
Idaho taxpayers are going to have to cough up more money to settle the score between a now-defunct Boise coffee shop and the state’s biggest university.
An Ada County judge ruled that Boise State University owes Big City Coffee $1.6 million in legal fees and costs in a lawsuit that centered around the shop’s support for the thin blue line, the concept that police form the line between order and lawlessness.
More than $800,000 of that chunk will go to Big City’s lead attorney, Michael Roe, a partner at Boise law firm Givens Pursley, according to a court order filed March 17.
Part of the sum will go to Larry Williams, a prominent Boise businessman and wealthy Republican donor, who paid about $475,000 in legal fees to help bring the case against the university. In a previous court filing, Roe agreed that Williams would be reimbursed if the court awarded legal fees to Big City.
But no private donor stepped up to help Boise State. The university’s attorneys had asked the court to reduce any fee award.
First Amendment case over thin blue line
The case went to trial in September, when a jury decided that two Boise State administrators owe Big City $4 million, including $3 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The First Amendment case stemmed from the closure of the shop’s campus location over four years ago.
Halfway through the trial, the shop’s owner, Sarah Fendley, unexpectedly closed her downtown location at 1416 W. Grove St. Caffeina Kitchen opened in its place.
Fendley had argued that the administrators — Leslie Webb, the university’s former vice president of student affairs, who now works at the University of Montana; and Alicia Estey, then-Boise State’s vice president for university affairs and now its chief financial and operating officer — forced the closure of her shop near the university’s library, a month and a half after it opened, to appease a group of students who took issue with her support of law enforcement.
District Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace kept most of the jury’s award intact, apart from reducing one portion of the compensatory damages awarded to Fendley for business losses by just over $300,000 because it was “excessive.”
Boise State plans to appeal the verdict, but if it ends up paying the damages, much of the money would come from the state of Idaho’s self-funded insurance program, known as the Retained Risk Account, which is managed by the state Department of Administration’s Risk Management Program. The insurance pool, however, would not cover punitive damages awarded against Webb.
“There is no doubt that the state of Idaho is paying for whatever judgment, if any, remains after the appeal in this case,” Keely Duke, the lawyer representing the Boise State administrators, said at a post-trial hearing.
The university told the Statesman Tuesday it would not be commenting on the pending litigation.
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 2:51 PM.
