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Comment by ElliotH | Hacker News Reader

It amazes me that legal costs aren't going to be definitely paid here. That alone makes this system almost impossible to appeal, pro-bono lawyers aren't likely to work on this issue after the first one or two high profile cases if there isn't a payout.

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I can believe that a lawyer working on someone's case for 8 years can credit enough hours to build up to $3.5MM, that's reasonable.

I'm sure she (lawyer) won't let it go easily, as nobody should work for free, for 1 day, or 8 years. The good hope is that eventually couple years from now her bill will be kicked through different departments and different manager's hands, enough times that at some point someone will cut her a check. It may be settled for $1MM or something, but eventually I don't see why she shouldn't get paid and some judge sooner or later will rule some sense into it. Bad news is that she will get paid from mine and yours pocket. Hopefully, this will learn FBI something, but honestly I highly doubt it....

The problem here is that the conduct that led to the lawsuit must be intentional and exceptional in order for a court to be able to award attorney fees. While our laws made this an incredibly difficult situation to resolve, the conduct in this case consisted of a simple mistake made on a form by an FBI agent. Unfortunately, that was neither intentional nor exceptional, and thus doesn't meet the standard for a court to award attorney fees.

> intentional and exceptional

How obvious was it that it was a mistake by an FBI agent? Does the DOJ intentional defending a mistake count as exceptional enough?

I haven't been following the case closely, but the consensus (even in the view of the plaintiff and the judge) is that the agent misinterpreted the instructions for completing the form, which led to him marking the wrong box on it.

People aren't complaining about the mistake itself, but about the US government requiring Ibrahim to spent 8 years and $3.5 million dollars to correct the mistake. They could have done a review when the lawsuit was filed, and they could have agreed to settle the lawsuit after the mistake came to light during depositions. As far as we know, they didn't do either of those. That's what the gp is implying might be exceptional and worthy of awarding fees.

Surely the conduct should also include the government's egregious behavior during the case?

If in a regular civil suit, one of the parties spent several years lying and making shit up and had absolutely zero case when all was said and done, surely the judge would take whatever opportunity was available to penalize that party and make whole the other party?

Unfortunately, mounting an aggressive defense to a lawsuit isn't considered egregious in the eyes of the law.

Does that include witness tampering? One of the witnesses in the case was unable to appear in court because she was also mysteriously added to the no fly list.

The "simple mistake" was not the "intentional and exceptional" bad conduct here. The intentional and exceptional conduct was in not having a clear, transparent, and straightforward process for a person to find out they're on the list, find out exactly why, and appeal.

This is hypocritical. Any other defendent found to have committed what amounts to gross professional negligence that deprived someone of a basic right (freedom to move about) would be looking at some combination of (1) a revoked license, (2) severe damages, and (3) paying the harmed party's legal fees. The longer the US government continues this kind of hypocrisy the more it risks being replaced.

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