A ruling will wait on whether the city should be required to pay $91,000 in plaintiffs’ legal fees in the fight to build a Wal-Mart in northwest Lawrence.

Douglas County District Judge Michael Malone took the question under advisement Thursday after a hearing in one of the lawsuits pitting 6Wak Land Investments LLC, owners of the proposed Wal-Mart site at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive, against the city of Lawrence.

The city in spring 2003 refused to grant building permits for the Wal-Mart and a restaurant at the intersection’s northwest corner but never issued a formal denial. Malone last summer said the city failed to follow its own procedures by failing to formally deny the permits; he ordered the city to pay 6Wak’s legal fees in the case.

That $91,000 bill was at the center of Thursday’s hearing. If forced to pay, the city’s legal costs in the Wal-Mart matter would nearly double — City Hall has spent more than $102,000 defending lawsuits in the case.

R. Scott Beeler, an Overland Park attorney who is representing the city, argued the city made a simple, trivial mistake.

“They knew the answer: ‘No, the permit is not going to issue,'” Beeler said. “The city would have zero motivation to stall the process by failing to cross a ‘T’ or dot an ‘I.'”

Mary Jo Shaney, an attorney representing 6Wak, argued the city’s failure to act was a serious procedural breach. Asked by Malone why the city would have any interest in delaying the process, Shaney said it was to stop the group of investors and stop Wal-Mart.

“We don’t think this is isolated,” she said. “The city’s not paying attention to its own rules.”

Beeler also argued that legal fees shouldn’t be paid because he thought Malone’s remedy — forcing the city to start the permit process anew — was not what the plaintiffs originally sought. The city eventually formally denied the permits, leading to five more lawsuits that are pending in Douglas County District Court.

Malone said he needed more time to decide whether the city must pay, but he said he didn’t think the city’s lapse was as trivial as Beeler portrayed it. The city’s action resulted in wasted judicial time and wasted time for attorneys on both sides, he said.

“Obviously,” Malone said, “this was more than just crossing ‘T’s and dotting ‘I’s.”

Malone did not give a timetable for his decision. 6Wak is a partnership of Lawrence developers Bill Newsome and Doug Compton.