The Foundry:
“The civil rights organizations tried to persuade the court to not award costs against them because “their participation should be encouraged and because they cannot afford to pay.” But such costs are “routinely” awarded against losing parties in civil rights litigation, and the court questioned the credibility of the organizations’ claims, saying that they had “failed to establish an inability to pay costs given their hefty expenditures throughout the litigation.”
In fact, the NAACP independent auditors’ report for 2011 shows almost $14 million in total assets, so the organization’s claim made to a federal court that it cannot pay such costs was highly questionable.”
If Section 5 survives, civil rights groups better be more careful in deciding to intervene in cases.