Title: Glew v. Ohio Savings

State: utah

Issuer: Utah Supreme Court

Document:

2008 UT 17 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH ----oo0oo---- Jordan Glew, Maureen Glew, James No. 20051092 R. Nichol, and Joan P. Nichol, Plaintiffs, Counterclaim Defendants, and Appellees, Superior Title Company of Utah, Additional Counterclaim Defendant, v. Ohio Savings Bank, Defendant, Counterclaimant, Third-Party Plaintiff, and Appellant, v. F I L E D Metro National Title Company, Third-Party Defendant. February 22, 2008 --- Third District, Salt Lake The Honorable Tyrone E. Medley No. 000902663 Attorneys: Richard A. Rappaport, Leslie Van Frank, Thomas J. Burns, Salt Lake City, for plaintiffs George A. Hunt, Salt Lake City, for defendant --- ORDER GRANTING ATTORNEY FEES ON APPEAL Appellees Jordan Glew, Maureen Glew, James R. Nichol, and Joan P. Nichol petitioned this court for rehearing of the appeal which resulted in the issuance of our decision in Glew v. Ohio Savings Bank, 2007 UT 56, 181 P.3d 791, on July 17, 2007. The appellees sought rehearing for the purpose of seeking an award of their attorney fees on appeal. Following the receipt of the appellees’ petition, we called for a response from the appellant, Ohio Savings Bank, and sought supplemental briefing on the question presented in the appellees’ petition. No. 20051092 2 Although we conclude that an application for an award of attorney fees on appeal should be presented to this court by motion brought under rule 23 of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure instead of through a petition for rehearing, we concede that our rules do not give clear direction on this subject. The appellees have understandably construed our failure to address their request for fees on appeal in our opinion to be a matter of “overlooking” or “misapprehending” the issue. The availability of fees on appeal is, however, an issue that is in almost all instances ancillary to the issues to which the parties have devoted their energies and precious brief pages. The issue is never an issue on appeal that can be expected to appear in a docketing statement under the requirements of rule 9(c)(7) of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure. We therefore elect to treat the appellees’ petition for rehearing as a motion to award attorney fees on appeal. By using the petition for rehearing to seek their fees, the appellees have unwittingly invited Ohio Savings to seek rehearing of the trial court’s award of attorney fees, an issue it never challenged before. We summarily reject Ohio Savings’ request that we take up the unpreserved issue of whether the trial court properly awarded the appellees their attorney fees on the basis of a claim that “exceptional circumstances” warrant review. Not only did Ohio Savings fail to take up the issue of attorney fees in any papers filed with the court before we issued our decision, it did not take note of the matter until we invited it to respond to the appellees’ petition for rehearing. We also reject Ohio Savings’s contention that the appellees are ineligible for an award of fees on appeal because our decision affirmed the appellees’ victory on its claim of equitable estoppel but declined to reach other grounds. According to Ohio Savings, an equitable resolution cannot support a fee award. This claim lacks merit. The trial court determined that Ohio Savings was equitably estopped from asserting that the appellees, specifically Mr. and Mrs. Nichol, breached their contract. As we have recently noted, equitable estoppel may be used to justify “modify[ing] a contract or prevent[ing] a party from denying the validity of contract when one party has relied on another party’s conduct.” Swan Creek Vill. Homeowners Ass’n v. Warne, 2006 UT 22, ¶ 35, 134 P.3d 1122. The equitable relief awarded the appellees was not a substitute for relief under a contract, but rather provided the rationale for awarding relief based squarely on a contract. Therefore, consistent with our settled view that a party who received an award of attorney fees below is entitled to their fees on appeal, we grant the appellees’ application for fees and 3 No. 20051092 remand for determination of the reasonable amount of attorney fees to be awarded. Dated this 22 day of February, 2008. BY THE COURT Ronald E. Nehring Justice