A Lewis and Clark County District Court judge on Tuesday awarded the plaintiffs and their attorneys in the landmark Held v. Montana case nearly $3 million for their nearly four years of litigation.
Judge Kathy Seeley awarded the group of 10 attorneys $2.85 million in fees and the plaintiffs another $98,667 in costs, which is about $238,000 less than their original request made earlier this year. MTN News first reported news of the award on Tuesday.
The 16 youth plaintiffs from Montana in the case were represented by attorneys for Our Children’s Trust, the Western Environmental Law Center, and Montana environmental lawyer Roger Sullivan, among others.
“The specialized knowledge and experience of these attorneys was critical to the success of this case, particularly given the unique and complex subject matter and the rigorous demands of litigation which spanned more than four years,” Seeley wrote in her order.
Seeley wrote in her order that because plaintiffs had to bring the case to successfully defend their constitutional rights, the complex litigation lasted for years, and the extensive time and skill required for the case showed the lawyers should be entitled to such an award.
Chase Scheuer, a spokesperson for the Montana Attorney General’s Office, which defended the state in the case, said the office was “disappointed” in the decision on attorney’s fees and would appeal the ruling to the Montana Supreme Court.
In a joint statement from Our Children’s Trust and the Western Environmental Law Center, the two organizations said they were grateful to the court for the award, which they said affirmed the years of commitment and legal expertise they lent to the plaintiffs in the case.
“This award represents only a fraction of the thousands of hours invested over more than five years, but it helps ensure that organizations like ours can continue to stand with young people fighting for their constitutional rights,” the groups said in a written statement.
In the months since the state’s attorneys and plaintiffs’ attorneys argued before Seeley about what fees the plaintiffs were entitled to, the Held plaintiffs reduced their request, according to court filings. They had also lobbed off thousands of hours of work when making their initial request, the plaintiffs said.
Though the state says it plans to appeal this week’s ruling, the Legislature already budgeted the money — nearly the exact dollar amount originally requested — into House Bill 3 earlier this year, which was signed by the governor.
Seeley’s summer 2023 decision in the case, in which she found two Montana state laws that prevented the state from analyzing greenhouse gas emissions from energy projects were unconstitutional, upheld the Montana Constitution’s right to a clean and healthful environment for current and future generations, as well as its right to a stable climate system. The Montana Supreme Court upheld the decision in December 2024.
Those rulings led the Department of Environmental Quality and lawmakers this year to analyze and make changes to the Montana Environmental Policy Act, which is the analysis process energy and other projects go through to determine environmental and other impacts of the projects before they can be approved.
Now, several of the Held plaintiffs are also plaintiffs in a similar federal case being heard this week in Missoula. A judge is hearing oral arguments and witness testimony on their challenge in Lighthiser v. Trump, in which the plaintiffs are challenging Trump administration executive orders aimed at “unleashing American energy.” Our Children’s Trust is also among the legal teams representing the plaintiffs in that case.
“We remain humbled by the opportunity to walk beside these courageous youth and are as committed as ever to advancing their fight to uphold the values enshrined in Montana’s great constitution,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Held case said in their joint statement.
Blair Miller is the editor for the Montana State News Bureau. Prior to that, he was a reporter at the Daily Montanan and a digital reporter, editor and photojournalist at TV news outlets in Denver, Albuquerque and mid-Missouri.
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