https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Think-Oakland-is-done-paying-for-Desley-Brooks-12751145.php
Oakland may not be done paying for that shove delivered by City Councilwoman Desley Brooks to former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown at a Jack London Square restaurant.
An Alameda County jury hit Oakland with a $3.77 million verdict last year — then, for good measure, tacked on $550,000 in punitive damages against Brooks herself.
Now, Brown’s legal team is seeking $1.1 million in attorneys’ fees for the elder-abuse lawsuit they filed over the October 2015 push and fall that Brown suffered when she and Brooks got into an argument at Everett and Jones Barbeque.
The jury found that the councilwoman had pushed the then-72-year-old Brown over a row of chairs.
In a sworn declaration filed in Alameda County Superior Court, the former Panther leader said she had been turned down by several prominent Bay Area civil rights attorneys after they concluded her claim was good for no more than $20,000 to $25,000.
And that she was told it was going to be an uphill battle because Brooks is “a powerful Oakland politician.”
The Sausalito law firm Bonner & Bonner, however, decided her case had merit and “a high jury, trial value,” Brown said.
And it appears they were right. Attorney Charles Bonner is now asking the city for fees of up to $700 an hour — plus expenses — for himself, his son and another lawyer, as well as for a half-dozen legal assistants. Total tab: $1.1 million.
Bonner did not return our call seeking comment, but he did tell the court that his fees are “consistent with the San Francisco Bay Area market rates for attorneys of comparable skill and experience and with court awards of attorneys’ fees in other cases.”
A spokesman for Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, whose office defended Brooks, also declined to comment.
A hearing on the fees has been set for March 23.
