It agreed with defendant that it should not award fees that plaintiff incurred in pursuing its claim for lost profits. The court also cited as factors bearing on its award the fact that plaintiff had been unable or unwilling to disclose its bid preparation costs before trial and that an equipment manufacturer had made misrepresentations to defendant on plaintiff's behalf about a fuel tank that plaintiff had proposed to use for the project. On appeal, plaintiff argues that the trial court was required to accept its requested fee as reasonable because it offered expert testimony on the reasonableness of its fee and defendant did not present expert testimony to establish that the fee was unreasonable. It also argues that an award of less than a third of the fees that it had incurred would undermine the goal of ORS 279.067 to encourage adversely affected bidders to enforce the public contract law through private action. Finally, plaintiff argues that the county's aggressive defense posture increased plaintiff's fees.
Defendant counters that the low fee award was within the range of the trial court's discretion.
After examining the record, we conclude that, without more detailed findings to support the award, we are unable to determine whether the court acted within its discretion in setting fees. While Oregon courts have broad discretion in setting attorney fees, the Supreme Court nonetheless requires them to enter findings that are sufficient to permit meaningful appellate review of their awards. Or at 188, the relevant case law indicates that courts must describe the effect of each of the factors on which they rely in setting fees. Here, the trial court did not explain the degree to which each factor on which it relied affected its award. The trial court noted, for example, that it would not award fees for time spent to pursue the claim for lost profits.