Fayette County has been ordered to pay $242,753 to the civil rights attorneys who represented a man who sued the county for preventing him from seeing his children.

The amount, ordered on Wednesday by U.S. District Senior Judge Donetta W. Ambrose, is less than the $445,000 in fees that the American Civil Liberties Union in Pittsburgh had sought to recover.

The ACLU argued the $445,000 represented hourly fees and travel expenses for three attorneys and a paralegal who worked on the case. The ACLU sued Fayette Children and Youth Services and two caseworkers in 2008 for violating their client's civil rights.

The client, identified only as John Doe in court papers, died in a traffic accident last year.

His estate sued the county because CYS forced him to surrender custody of his three children because he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

The 32-year-old Smithfield man never was charged with child abuse, but the agency took the action based on the state definition that any adult having sex with someone younger than 18 is considered abuse.

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