Opinion ID: 2617586
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: a prevailing party's post-judgment plea for a counsel-fee award is separate from a claim on the merits

Text: Where, in a breach-of-contract action, a litigant presses a statutory plea for counsel-fee award qua prevailing party in the case, its demand presents a postjudgment issue. [22] Not so if the plea should rest upon a contract clause of the agreement in suit. The trial court's inquiry into Keel's § 936 [23] counsel-fee plea  an inquiry which could not be commenced until some party had emerged as having prevailed  was resolved by the April 21, 1993 order that set the award at $1,750.00. This order, which is separately appealable, was timely brought for our review within thirty days of its nisi prius filing. [24]