KBR Wants Rape Claimant To Pay Its Legal Fees

Now that KBR has prevailed in Jamie Leigh Jones’ civil case against them, they want her to pay their fees, which total in the millions. And, legally speaking, they are probably just doing it to be assholes.

Jones’ lawyer told The Wall Street Journal that Jones can’t afford the $2 million in legal fees and $145,000 in court fees, adding, ‘They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us. This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”

KBR told the Journal that since Jones brought her claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which entitles winning parties to collect legal fees, she shouldn’t be surprised. That’s technically true, but even right-leaning Point of Law says that the Title VII claim is “not the argument KBR makes in its brief: they’re simply claiming that the case was frivolous. As such, the motion is unlikely to succeed given the Fifth Circuit standards for permitting a Title VII defendant to recover fees, where ‘frivolous’ is a very small subset of ‘meritless,’ and KBR’s expected recovery is probably less than the publicity hit it’s taking from left-wing blogs.” It’s also been suggested by law blog commenters that KBR could file the fees as a cost-reimbursable expense with the Department of Defense.

KBR’s rep didn’t get into that and just said, “Our fees were substantial, so we’d like to get reimbursed.” Just FYI, KBR reported $786 million in assets and revenue of $10 billion last year.

KBR Requests That Losing Rape Claimant Pay Company’s Legal Fees [WSJ]
KBR Sues Jones to Recover Attorneys’ Fees and Costs [Disputing]
KBR Seeking Loser-Pay Against Jamie Leigh Jones [Point of Law]