Opinion ID: 3167552
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: cpg’s request for costs and attorney fees on

Text: APPEAL IS GRANTED ¶31 Finally, we grant CPG’s request for attorney fees on this appeal. The UPUAA provides that a “party who prevails on a cause of action brought under this section recovers the cost of the suit, including reasonable attorney fees.” UTAH CODE § 76-10-1605(2). CPG has prevailed on a cause of action under the UPUAA—the panel necessarily decided as much when it awarded attorney fees, and Westgate has not contested that decision. Further, “the cost of the suit, including reasonable attorney fees” plainly includes the cost of an appeal, including reasonable appellate attorney fees. CPG, however, “did not retain all of [its arbitration] victory on appeal, and some adjustment may be necessary so that [it does] not recover fees attributable to issues on which [it] did not prevail.” Valcarce v. Fitzgerald, 961 P.2d 305, 319 (Utah 1998) (plurality opinion). ¶32 Westgate disputes this conclusion, citing Meadowbrook, LLC v. Flower, 959 P.2d 115, 117–19 (Utah 1998), for the proposition that a party waives its right to attorney fees if it fails to request fees before the entry of final judgment. But this misstates Meadowbrook, which did not concern appellate fees but merely whether trial fees could be requested by “timely post-trial motions.” Id. at 117. Indeed, Meadowbrook is based on Cabrera v. Cottrell, 694 P.2d 622 (Utah 1985), whose holding Meadowbrook summarizes as follows: [A] party who failed to request all attorney fees incurred for trial work during the “trial phase” of a 9 WESTGATE v. CONSUMER PROTECTION GROUP Opinion of the Court case could not request such fees for the first time after the case had been remanded to the trial court for the sole purpose of determining attorney fees incurred in defending the case on appeal. Meadowbrook, 959 P.2d at 117 (emphasis added). Meadowbrook thus explicitly recognized that a party who has waived his right to fees incurred at trial could nevertheless recover fees incurred on appeal. ¶33 Westgate’s brief also claims that Valcarce “explain[ed] that only a party who received attorney fees below and prevails on appeal is entitled to fees incurred on appeal.” (emphasis added). But Valcarce “explained” no such thing. It did hold that “when a party who received attorney fees below prevails on appeal, ‘the party is also entitled to fees reasonably incurred on appeal.’” Valcarce, 961 P.2d at 319 (citation omitted). But the crucial word “only”—on which Westgate’s entire argument hangs—does not appear in the relevant passage, and the very paragraph that Westgate cites suggests that there are other grounds on which an appellate court may award attorney fees: “This court has interpreted attorney fee statutes broadly so as to award attorney fees on appeal where a statute initially authorizes them.” Id. (citation omitted). The UPUAA authorizes such attorney fees, and so we award them here.