If an opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings, then a bankruptcy case isn’t over until the lawyers get paid. In the long-running Solutia bankruptcy saga, one of the final acts came today when Judge Prudence Carter Beatty approved paying $197 million to lawyers and other professionals. The U.S. Trustee’s office had objected to some items on the list, including stays at the Ritz-Carlton and a three-person meal that cost $1,000.

According to a Bloomberg story, the judge dismissed most of the trustee’s objections:

“I’m not prepared to dock the fee applications for these issues,” Beatty said, telling Greg Zipes, a lawyer for the U.S. Trustee, that “a lot of what I see is penny-ante moralism. People getting moral about technical issues.”

Beatty also approved most expenses, saying that lawyers were obligated to take car services so they wouldn’t get sweaty, and treat clients to meals that weren’t “hot dogs.”