Deborah Elkins//December 17, 2014//
A woman who challenged public prayer practices of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors has won attorney’s fees in the county’s appeal of fees awarded by a Danville federal court.
Barbara Hudson sued the county in 2011 for opening board meetings with an invocation that was “usually explicitly Christian in nature,” for which the board asked the audience to stand, according to the Dec. 17 opinion by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hudson, a non-Christian resident of the county who routinely attended board meetings, said the prayers made her and other county citizens feel unwelcome.
When Hudson won her First Amendment challenge, U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski awarded her $53,229.92.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in making the fee award to Hudson’s lead counsel, Rebecca Glenberg, and to Frank Feibelman, who reviewed and edited pleadings in the case, the panel said.
In a unanimous opinion in Hudson v. Pittsylvania County, Va., by Judge Allyson K. Duncan, the panel upheld Urbanski’s conclusion that neither the use of two lawyers, nor the hours they spent on the case, were unreasonable.
The panel dismissed the county’s appeal on Establishment Clause claims as untimely.