‘Baseless arguments’ cost Fulton nearly $100K

Fulton County had already been ordered to pay about $4.7 million in back pay and interest to 23 State and Superior Court law clerks. But because the county tried to argue its way out of paying, now it must hand over another $94,558 in attorneys’ fees.

The clerks sued after the County Commission raised staff attorneys’ pay in 1996, but not theirs. An arbitrator ruled in the clerks’ favor, but Fulton argued that it has sovereign immunity and can’t be ordered to pay. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott ordered that the clerks’ legal fees from responding to “baseless arguments” be reimbursed.