Case Title: Fagen v. Rogerson Flats Wind Park

Citation: 

Docket Number: 42684

State: idaho

Court: Idaho Supreme Court (civil)

Date: 2016-01-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO 
 
Docket No. 42684-2014 
 
FAGEN, INC., a Minnesota corporation, 
 
Plaintiff-Respondent, 
 
v. 
 
ROGERSON FLATS WIND PARK, LLC; 
COTTONWOOD WIND PARK, LLC; 
SALMON CREEK WIND PARK, LLC; 
DEEP CREEK WIND PARK, LLC; 
NOTCH BUTTE WIND PARK, LLC;  
EXERGY DEVELOPMENT GROUP OF 
IDAHO, LLC,  
 
Defendants-Appellants, 
 
and 
 
XRG DEVELOPMENT 
PARTNERS, LLC, 
 
Defendant. 
 
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Boise, January 2016 Term 
 
2016 Opinion No. 8  
 
Filed: January 26, 2016 
 
Stephen W. Kenyon, Clerk 
 
 
 
Appeal from the District Court of the Fifth Judicial District of the State of Idaho, 
in and for Twin Falls County.  Hon. Randy J. Stoker, District Judge. 
 
The amended judgment of the district court is affirmed. 
 
Angelo L. Rosa, Marsh Rosa LLP, Boise argued for appellants. 
 
John R. Goodell, Racine, Olsen, Nye, Budge & Bailey, Chtd., Boise, argued for 
respondent. 
 
 
 
EISMANN, Justice. 
 
This is an appeal out of Twin Falls County from an amended judgment awarding 
damages for breach of contract, court costs, and attorney fees in connection with a contract to 
construct five wind farms.  Because the parties had stipulated to that portion of the judgment 
 
 
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regarding the damages for breach of contract, those issues are not subject to appellate review.  
Because the only challenge to the award of attorney fees was raised for the first time on appeal, 
we do not consider it.  We affirm the amended judgment and the award of costs and attorney fees 
on appeal. 
 
I. 
Factual Background. 
 
On February 8, 2013, Fagen, Inc. (“Plaintiff”), filed five separate lawsuits seeking to 
recover damages for work it had done in the construction of five wind parks, four of which were 
located in Twin Falls County and one of which was located in Lincoln County.  Plaintiff had 
contracted with Exergy Development Group of Idaho, LLC (“Exergy Development”) to 
construct the wind parks, but after about eight months Plaintiff stopped construction because 
Exergy Development was unable to obtain financing due to regulatory issues. 
The lawsuit with respect to each wind park was filed in the county where the wind park 
was located, and all five lawsuits were subsequently consolidated into this case.  On March 5, 
2014, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint in each lawsuit.  Insofar as is relevant to this appeal, 
the five lawsuits asserted claims against a total of six defendants (herein collectively called 
“Defendants”), which were Exergy Development and five limited liability companies, namely:  
the Rogerson Flats Wind Park, LLC; Cottonwood Wind Park, LLC; Salmon Creek Wind Park, 
LLC; Deep Creek Wind Park, LLC; and Notch Butte Wind Park, LLC.  Plaintiff also sued XRG 
Development Partners, LLC, but Plaintiff’s claims against it were ultimately dismissed.1 
 
On July 30, 2014, Plaintiff moved for summary judgment against Defendants.  The 
motion was heard by the district court on September 2, 2014.  During the oral argument, 
Defendants’ counsel Angelo L. Rosa agreed that summary judgment should be granted against 
Defendants as to liability, with Defendants reserving the right to dispute some of the charges 
claimed by Plaintiff.  The following dialogue occurred: 
                                                 
1 On September 9, 2014, the district court entered an ORDER GRANTING AND DENYING MOTIONS ON 
HEARING HELD 9/2/14, which included a provision stating, “Plaintiff’s claims against Defendant XRG 
Development Partners, LLC are hereby DISMISSED with prejudice in their entirety.”  The court did ultimately 
enter a judgment dismissing the claims against XRG Development Partners, LLC, after this Court had given notice 
that the appeal would be dismissed for the lack of a final judgment because judgment had not been entered deciding 
the claims against all parties. 
 
 
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THE COURT:  As to the merits of this case, Mr. Rosa, do you agree that subject 
to whatever offsets or disputes your client can raise with regard to the billings, 
that summary judgment for the plaintiff should be entered?  Do you have any 
dispute about that? 
MR. ROSA:  So a partial summary judgment reserving on the issue of damages? 
THE COURT:  Right. 
MR. ROSA:  Your Honor, I have no—my client has no objections to that.  You 
know, the damages, the circumstances, the facts that bear on a calculus of 
damages and defenses, I think, are properly sorted out in the damages phase of 
this. 
 
The court ordered that Plaintiff was entitled to a judgment for the gross amount of its 
billings subject to the Defendants’ ability to reduce the gross amount of damages by challenging 
specific invoices or line items in the invoice, including contending that the alleged work done 
had not been performed.  The court also ordered that Defendants must provide a specific listing 
of each challenged item at the pretrial conference set on September 29, 2014, and that all 
discovery be completed by the pretrial conference. 
 
On the morning of the pretrial conference, Defendants filed their pretrial statement in 
which they listed the specific items being challenged and stated that they also wanted to raise 
three new affirmative defenses that they alleged excused them from having to pay anything for 
the construction work done by Plaintiff.  Those defenses were:  (a) the action by the Public 
Utilities Commission, which made it unable for Exergy Development to obtain financing, 
constituted an event of force majeure under the contract; (b) the doctrine of frustration of 
purpose, based upon the action of the Public Utilities Commission; and (c) the obtaining of 
adequate financing was a condition precedent to having to make any payments to Plaintiff. 
 
During the pretrial conference, Mr. Rosa initially asserted that the affirmative defenses 
only related to the amount of damages.  After being challenged by one of Plaintiff’s counsel, Mr. 
Rosa admitted, “Counsel’s correct, these defenses are primarily liability related; however, they 
are questions of law that this court could easily dispose of, and in light of discovery, I believe 
under Rule 15(b) we could amend the answer to conform to evidence.” 
Mr. Rosa sought to explain his lateness in raising these defenses by stating that evidence 
supporting them came out during his client’s recent deposition “and some further digging into 
various issues.”  Ultimately, the court held that it would not reconsider the grant of summary 
judgment as to liability for two reasons:  (a) Mr. Rosa had stipulated on September 2, 2014, that 
 
 
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the only issue remaining was the amount of damages and (b) no good cause was shown for 
setting aside the order granting partial summary judgment because all of the information 
regarding those defenses was fully available to Defendants prior to the summary judgment 
motion.  Therefore, the court also held that evidence as to these three affirmative defenses would 
not be admissible at trial. 
 
On October 22, 2014, the parties filed a written stipulation asking that the court enter 
judgment in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants as specified in the stipulation and that the 
court vacate the trial because there was no issue remaining to be tried.  The stipulation was for 
judgments in the sum of $1,364,974.81 each against Rogerson Flats Wind Park, LLC; 
Cottonwood Wind Park, LLC; Salmon Creek Wind Park, LLC; Deep Creek Wind Park, LLC, 
and a judgment in the sum of $808,212.20 against Notch Butte Wind Park, LLC.  In addition, the 
stipulation was for a judgment against Exergy Development Group of Idaho, LLC, in the sum of 
$6,268,111.44, which was the total of the judgments against each of the other Defendants.  
Finally, all judgments were to be exclusive of prejudgment interest, court costs, and attorney 
fees, which issues the stipulation expressly reserved for further proceedings.  The court accepted 
the stipulation and entered judgment accordingly on October 23, 2014.  The court later awarded 
Plaintiff prejudgment interest and court costs, including attorney fees.  It entered an amended 
judgment on February 10, 2015, which included the award of damages as set forth in the prior 
judgment and the awards of prejudgment interest, court costs, and attorney fees.   Defendants 
timely appealed. 
 
  
 
II. 
Are Defendants’ Challenges to Issues Resolved by the Stipulated Judgment Waived? 
 
 
Defendants make two challenges to issues resolved by the stipulated judgment.  First, 
they assert that the district court abused its discretion in denying Defendants an opportunity to 
amend their pleadings to conform to the evidence pursuant to Rule 15(b) of the Idaho Rules of 
Civil Procedure.2  Second, they assert that the court abused its discretion in failing to set aside 
the grant of summary judgment. 
                                                 
2 Rule 15(b) allows for the amendment of pleadings when issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by the express 
or implied consent of the parties.  Because there was no trial, that rule obviously has no application. 
 
 
 
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We need not address either of those issues.  The general rule is that a stipulated judgment 
is not subject to appellate review.  Pac. Nat’l. Bank of Wash. v. Mount, 97 Idaho 887, 887, 556 
P.2d 70, 70 (1976); 4 Am. Jur. 2d Appellate Review § 165 (2015).  There is an exception to the 
general rule where the appellant(s) did not actually consent to the judgment, or the trial court 
lacked subject matter jurisdiction, or the judgment was obtained by fraud, or the judgment 
adversely affects the public interest.  Pac. Nat’l. Bank of Wash., 97 Idaho at 888, 556 P.2d at 71.  
There is nothing in the record to support any of those exceptions in this case. 
 
The stipulation stated, “The foregoing Stipulation and Judgment requested to be entered 
hereon is without prejudice to any parties’ right of appeal otherwise existing.”  During oral 
argument, Defendants’ counsel admitted that the “right of appeal otherwise existing” meant the 
issues not resolved by the stipulated judgment, which were prejudgment interest, court costs, and 
attorney fees.  The judgment that the district court entered based upon the stipulation expressly 
stated with respect to its award against each Defendant that the award was exclusive of 
prejudgment interest, court costs, and attorney fees. 
Therefore, we will not address the substantive issues raised by Defendants on appeal.  
They simply seek on appeal to set aside the judgment to which they stipulated. 
 
III. 
Did the District Court Abuse Its Discretion in Determining the Amount of Attorney Fees to 
Award Plaintiff? 
 
 
The stipulated judgment did not resolve the amount of attorney fees to be awarded to 
Plaintiff.  After the judgment was entered, Plaintiff timely filed a memorandum of costs seeking 
an award of $99,452.00 in attorney fees.  In support of that request, it filed affidavits of both its 
Minnesota and Idaho counsel that set forth the basis and method of computing the attorney fees 
claimed.  Defendants filed an objection to the fees claimed, stating:  (a) “The request for 
attorney’s fees contains a request for an unreasonable and disproportionate billing in relation to 
the amount of work undertaken in this matter, the issues at hand, and the time burdens involved”; 
(b) “This Court is permitted to examine the reasonableness of the time and labor expended by the 
attorney under I.R.C.P. 54(e)(3)(A) and need not blindly accept the figures advanced by Fagen’s 
counsel”; and (c) “For the sake of clarification, Defendant XRG Development Partners, LLC has 
been dismissed as a party to this lawsuit,” and Fagen did not prevail against that entity. 
 
 
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The district court awarded Plaintiff the amount of attorney fees it requested.  In doing so, 
the court wrote that it had reviewed the memorandum of costs and supporting affidavits; that the 
fees claimed did not include work in the litigation against XRG Development Partners, LLC; that 
it had considered the factors set forth in Rule 54(e)(3) of the Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure; and 
that the amount of fees claimed was reasonable.  The court also noted that Defendants had failed 
to raise any specific objection to the attorney fees claimed.  The court wrote: 
Defendants fail to raise any specific objection, or to point out any specific 
time/work entry or other billing entry of Fagen’s materials submitted in support of 
its attorney fees claim as objectionable.  Absent such specific objection, the Court 
concludes that Defendants have failed to identify or demonstrate with any degree 
of particularity any manner in which Fagen’s claimed attorney fees are 
unreasonable, disproportionate, excessive, or otherwise inappropriate. 
 
On appeal, Defendants contend that the district court erred “by deeming as reasonable the 
rates of Minnesota counsel (vastly higher than those in the rural Idaho market),” which they 
assert made the award disproportionally greater than reasonable when compared to similar cases. 
The appropriate manner in which to object to the attorney fees claimed in a memorandum 
of costs is to file and serve timely on adverse parties “a motion to disallow part or all of such 
costs.”  I.R.C.P. 54(e)(6), 54(d)(6).  A motion must “state with particularity the grounds 
therefor.”  I.R.C.P. 7(b)(1).  In their objection to the attorney fees claimed, Defendants did not 
state with particularity that they were objecting to the hourly rate claimed by Plaintiff’s 
Minnesota counsel.  That is an issue raised for the first time on appeal.  Therefore, we will not 
consider it.  Clear Springs Foods, Inc. v. Spackman, 150 Idaho 790, 812, 252 P.3d 71, 93 (2011). 
 
IV. 
Is Plaintiff Entitled to an Award of Attorney Fees on Appeal? 
 
 
Plaintiff seeks an award of attorney fees on appeal pursuant to the parties’ contract and 
Idaho Code sections 12-120(3) and 12-121.  “Section 12-120(3) provides that in an action to 
recover in a commercial transaction, the prevailing party is entitled to an award of attorney fees.”  
Hilliard v. Murphy Land Co., LLC, 158 Idaho 737, 744, 351 P.3d 1195, 1202 (2015).  Because 
this was an action to recover in a commercial transaction, Plaintiff is entitled to an award of 
attorney fees on appeal. 
 
 
 
 
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V. 
Conclusion. 
 
 
We affirm the amended judgment of the district court, and we award Respondent costs 
and attorney fees on appeal. 
 
 
Chief Justice J. JONES, Justices BURDICK, W. JONES, and HORTON CONCUR.