TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision.  Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
PROBLEM: fees, an award of reasonable fees is mandatory, as long as there is proof of reasonable fees ... and the plaintiff has been awarded damages.” Mathis v. Exxon Corp., 302 F.3d 448, 462 (5th Cir.2002), citing Tex. Civ. Peac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 38.001(8) (Vernon 2002). Accord Coffel v. Stryker Corp., 284 F.3d 625, 640 (5th Cir.2002) (“[t]he award of reasonable attorneys’ fees is mandatory under § 38.001 if the plaintiff prevails in his or her breach of contract claim and recovers damages”). The only discretion the Fifth Circuit permits is discretion to determine the amount of the attorney’s fees award. See id. The availability of a section 38.001 award is not conditioned on a contractual provision for attorney’s fees. See, e.g., Holland v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 1 S.W.3d 91, 95 (Tex. 1999) (<HOLDING>); Golden v. Murphy, 611 S.W.2d 914, 915 
 Holding statements: (A) holding award of attorneys fees to party prevailing on contract claim is mandatory under section 38001 if there is proof of the reasonableness of the fees (B) holding that prevailing party to contract dispute may recover attorneys fees either pursuant to contract or pursuant to statute (C) holding that prevailing party was entitled to attorneys fees under an option contract which had expired prior to litigation because the parties were litigating their performance under the terms of the contract (D) holding that the party prevailing on the significant issues in the litigation is the party that should be considered the prevailing party for attorneys fees (E) holding defendant waived request for fees pursuant to contract provision by only generally referring to fees in the answer and not citing the contract

SOLUTION: (B)

PROBLEM: resource. Power that is not exercised is not management or control even though in a legal sense the resource may belong in part or appertain to that party. While the Government is correct in their argument that there is not a double recovery until the total value of the damaged or injured resource has been recovered, a given trustee cannot recover more than what its stewardship is determined to be. To allow otherwise would create the undesirable situation of a race to the courthouse between co-trustees with the first in time being the first in right. Moreover, once a state, federal or other public trustee recovers such damages, res judicata would prevent a second trustee from recovering the same public losses. Alaska Sport Fishing Ass’n v. Exxon Corp., 34 F.3d 769 (9th Cir.1994) (<HOLDING>). Likewise, settlement would be discouraged by 
 Holding statements: (A) holding that claims to the vsf benefits under various theories were barred by the res judicata effect of the state court judgment in castellano iii (B) holding that the plaintiffs earlier claims of infringement by possession and its later claims of infringement by use of its source code arose from the same nucleus of operative facts and therefore the later claims were barred by res judicata (C) holding that a trustees claim was barred by res judicata and stating that the trustee could have asked the bankruptcy court to reserve his fraud claims for later adjudication which would have avoided his claims being barred (D) holding that the plaintiffs claims were barred by res judicata when the federal courts judgment was finalized by denial of his petition for certiorari (E) holding that the united states and the state of alaska as public trustees under the cwa and cercla could recover all lost use damages caused by the spill and that private claims for lost recreational use were barred under res judicata

SOLUTION: (E)

PROBLEM: is no dispute that the facts of this case establish a valid disclaimer by Ms. Gillette. We need not look beyond the plain language of Section 6205 to determine the effect of this disclaimer and the proper result in this case. , The clear meaning of Section 6205(a) is that the status of the parties and the effect of the disclaimer are fixed to the time of the decedent’s death, regardless of when the disclaimer is actually made. See In re Bute’s Estate, 355 Pa. 170, 49 A.2d 339, 341 (1946) (“When a devise is renounced the renunciation will relate back to the moment when the gift was made and prevent it from ever taking effect, leaving the devisee without an interest in the property and without liability in connection therewith.”); In re Estate of McCutcheon, 699 A.2d 746 (Pa.Super.1997) (<HOLDING>). In addition to relating a disclaimer back to 
 Holding statements: (A) holding that the ninetyday time period under the federal rule is not triggered unless a formal suggestion of death is made on the record regardless of whether the parties have knowledge of a partys death and that mere reference to a partys death in court proceedings or pleadings is not sufficient to trigger the limitations period for filing a motion for substitution (B) holding that because a disclaimer relates back to the decedents death the status of parties in the chain of succession are established as of the time of death regardless of when the disclaimer is made (C) holding that plaintiffs failure to prove decedents death was caused by the wrongful acts of the defendant precludes any recovery of wrongful death damages under mississippis wrongful death statute (D) holding that wife could receive permanent total disability payments after the death of her husband where the husbands claim was pending before the effective date of the 2008 statutory amendments and was still pending at the time of his death even though husbands death occurred after the effective date of the 2008 statutory amendments as wifes status as a dependent was subject to determination as of the time of husbands injury (E) holding in case where plaintiff sought damages resulting from the defendants failure to pay the accidental death benefit claims she filed following death of her husband transfer to south carolina was warranted because with the exception of plaintiffs relocation to the state of west virginia following the death of the decedent the cause of action bears virtually no relation to the forum chosen by the plaintiff

SOLUTION:
(B)