holding that the State, through the executive branch, waived sovereign immunity when it signed off on two published notices to the class members advocating attorneys’ fees
How later courts described this case
- holding that the State, through the executive branch, waived sovereign immunity when it signed off on two published notices to the class members advocating attorneys’ fees
- majority opinion now refers to as Lake View II
- and cases cited therein
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
LAVENSKI R. SMITH, Justice, concurring in part; dissenting in part. I write separately to dissent in part and concur in part. I join the dissent as to the mootness of the instant appeal. I, too, find no authority in Arkansas law for a compliance trial. The statutory and constitutional scheme upon which the plaintiffs based their suit no longer exists. Plaintiffs may well have a valid complaint based upon the subsequently enacted laws but that should be a different case.
However, I join the majority and the concurrence on the issue of entitlement to attorneys’ fees. As the prevailing party in an action that resulted in a substantial benefit to the class they represented, the plaintiffs should be entitled to attorneys’ fees. I join the concurrence in preferring the lodestar method for calculation of those fees.