SACRAMENTO  (AP) — A newspaper report says Sacramento County paid $2 in damages and $197,505 in attorney fees to settle a civil rights case.

The Sacramento Bee says a jury awarded the attorney's two clients $1 each on their claims that they endured excessive force while inmates at the county's downtown jail.

The eight-member panel awarded Robert E. Hunter and Howard Eley nominal compensation, apparently concluding the plaintiffs suffered no substantive damages.

The judge in the case awarded plaintiffs' lawyer Gary Gorski nearly $200,000 in fees, over the objections of attorney Thomas Cregger, who handled the litigation for the county.

Gorski says such fees give attorneys an incentive to vindicate important constitutional rights.

Cregger and County Counsel John Whisenhunt could not be reached for comment.

The trial earlier this year was the second in the 7 ½-year-old civil rights suit.