Prevailing Party for Purposes of Attorney’s Fees in Breach of Contract Claims

To be entitled to attorney’s fees, there needs to be a contractual or statutory basis to recover attorney’s fees (absent serving a proposal for settlement). There is oftentimes the misconception in breach of contract cases that the party that recovers a positive net judgment will automatically recover their attorney’s fees. While, certainly, sometimes this is the case, this is NOT what you should be banking on. The law has tried to progress to a point where it does not want certain cases to be driven solely by the prospect of recovering attorney’s fees just because you won $1. The Florida Supreme Court in Moritz v....

16 October

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Proposals for Settlement when there is a Contractual or Statutory Basis for Attorney’s Fees

Posted by David Adelstein

in Trial Perspectives

In an earlier posting I talked about proposals for settlement / offers of judgment. Again, these are used as a vehicle to create an argument for attorney’s fees down the road, particularly in cases where a party does not have a contractual or statutory basis to recover attorney’s fees. Please check out this article for more information on proposals for settlement because they have become an unnecessarily complicated vehicle with nuances that have resulted in an exorbitant amount of case law. As a result, while the argument to recover fees is preserved by serving the proposal for settlement, it is...