Workers' attorneys want $2.3 million for legal costs

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Attorneys for Latino farm workers who accused a labor contractor of rejecting them in favor of imported Thai workers say they should be awarded $2.3 million to cover their legal work on the long-running case.

That's considerably more than the $535,000 the plaintiffs were awarded by a judge earlier this year -- $350 to $500 for each of the 650 workers in the class-action lawsuit.

Seven attorneys from across the state handled the case on behalf of the farm workers, including staff from Columbia Legal Services and a private Seattle firm.

Labor specialists who gave affidavits on behalf of the attorneys wrote that they found the amount reasonable given the complexity of the case. Seasonal workers would not be able to afford to hire their own attorneys, and Columbia Legal Services deserves to recover money spent on the case in order to continue representing such clients, according to one expert's evaluation.

An attorney for Global Horizons, the labor contractor, declined to comment on the matter Tuesday.

The two Lower Valley growers who were accused of using Global to hire the Thai workers are expected to contest the requests for attorney's fees and about $80,000 in legal expenses. Those motions are due next week.

Brendan Monahan of Yakima, an attorney for the growers, said the plaintiffs prevailed in only one area of the case -- that the farms violated state law governing labor contracting. The original complaint was filed in 2005 in U.S. District Court in Yakima, and a judge ruled in favor of the farm workers in April. Those allegations were uncontested, Monahan said.

Green Acre Farms of Harrah and Valley Fruit of Wapato would be jointly liable for any financial awards, as would Global Horizons.

But the workers haven't been paid.

Global Horizons appealed the ruling on the amount due to the workers, and the plaintiffs and the two growers, in turn, asked the judge to stop the appeal clock while the fee issue was resolved.

If that request is granted, it would effectively allow a ruling on either the workers' judgment or the lawyers' pay to be presented as a package to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The estimated costs of representation were included in a legal notice published in the Yakima Herald-Republic to notify the class members of the request.

According to the notice, the plaintiffs' attorneys and their staff spent more than 8,000 hours working on the case since 2004 -- the equivalent of one person working 40 hours a week for nearly four years.

Global is not allowed to import workers after the state found that it had violated contracting law, but is appealing that restriction.