Opinion ID: 2377073
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial Court Denies Marvin's Request for Attorney Fees

Text: ¶ 33 At different points in this litigation, each of the brothers moved for attorney fees. [9] Branson filed his motion seeking attorney fees in February 2007, in the week after the conclusion of the jury trial on the issues related to the brothers' business venture. This motion, based largely on Branson's successful recovery of a $9,000 award for breach of contract, was denied by the court at the same time that the court awarded Marvin a JNOV on Branson's claims for slander of title and breach of fiduciary duty. The denial of this motion for attorney fees is not at issue in this appeal. ¶ 34 Several months later, in August 2007, the trial court conducted a bench trial to resolve the claims related to the family trust. The resolution of issues at that trial complicated Marvin's attempt to move for attorney fees. Branson essentially stipulated to a number of damages amounts but raised an issue regarding whether Marvin's actions entitled him to offset these damages. Determining whether these offsets would be granted required the trial court to decide whether its earlier decisions on some of Branson's claims had been based on the merits of those claims or if they had been based on a statute of limitations. So while the trial court had determined the amounts of Branson's liability to Marvin for the trust issues, the court reserved the issue of whether Branson was entitled to any offsets. ¶ 35 At the time of this bench trial, Marvin had yet to move for attorney fees based on the litigation related to the family trust. But he had made apparent his intention to do so. Indeed, the trial court judge noted that Marvin's intention to pursue attorney fees was what [was] keeping everybody from settling and suggested that the parties should focus on that central issue. Marvin represented to the trial court that he could not fully calculate his attorney fees until after all of Branson's claims regarding the potential offsets could be fully resolved. But the trial court responded that Marvin knew what attorney fees had accrued up to that point and suggested that this amount would not likely increase much before the case's resolution. The trial court concluded, I need some guidance on attorney's fees. It's your claim.... Why don't you frame that by way of a motion for an award.... Get it to me.... You're not going to spend a lot of attorney's fees between now and when I find a resolution to this case. Ultimately, however, Marvin postponed moving for attorney fees on the issues surrounding the family trust. ¶ 36 But Marvin did move for attorney fees based on his having prevailed over Branson on a large number of the already-resolved issues related to the brothers' business venture. Marvin filed this motion nearly three months after the conclusion of the bench trial on the family trust issues. As will be discussed, this was the only such motion Marvin filed. It does not seek any fees related to the bench trial and resolution of family trust issues. In this motion, Marvin argued that he had prevailed with regard to the claims related to the brothers' business venture because he had successfully avoided the vast majority of damages that Branson sought damages that Marvin claimed could have amounted to over $3 million. In support of this argument, Marvin enumerated all of the various claims that he had defeated. According to Marvin's method of enumerating these claims, he prevailed on seventeen claims prior to trial and another fourteen claims at trial. ¶ 37 In July 2008, eight months after Marvin's motion for attorney fees was filed and eleven months after the bench trial on the family trust issues, the trial court issued a memorandum decision with the stated intention of fully resolving all outstanding issues. In that decision, the trial court rejected Branson's argument that his liability on the trust issues should be offset by other claims not yet resolved. Thus, with regard to the family trust claims, the trial court concluded that Marvin was entitled to the amounts stipulated to at the bench trial, plus interest. ¶ 38 The trial court also considered Marvin's request for attorney fees and rejected the request. The court provided a number of reasons for rejecting the request. First, it incorporated the reasoning that it employed in rejecting Branson's earlier request for attorney fees in November 2007. Importantly, this November 2007 decision was entered in the three-month period between the end of the bench trial and the day Marvin filed his motion for attorney fees. Thus, it was issued at a time when the court was aware that Marvin intended to seek attorney fees on issues related to the family trust once those issues were resolved. Although the November 2007 decision was responsive to Branson's request for attorney fees, it noted that [e]ven though [Marvin] reserved attorney fees to be determined at the end of trial, the Court finds that neither party is justified in receiving attorney fees in regards to the breach of contract issue. In so concluding, the court noted that since both parties had prevailed on some of their claims, any awards of attorney fees would offset one another. ¶ 39 Second, the trial court's decision on Marvin's motion for attorney fees noted that Marvin voluntarily withdrew a large number of his claims before submitting them to the jury and that he recovered only $1 with regard to his breach of contract claim. Noting that [t]he attorneys fees expended and incurred on both sides are enormous and that the time and energy spent, the precious family ties and relationships lost, the public's forum and taxes [and] money wasted can all only be adequately described as a disaster. The court concluded that [t]he only feasible and reasoned decision relative to attorney's fees is that neither party prevailed [and] both suffered irreparable loss. The trial court refuse[d] to compound the loss by awarding fees to either party. Again noting the minimal recovery achieved by either party, the trial court concluded that it was not bound by [those awards] to find therefrom a `prevailing party' in this catastrophic litigation. It therefore awarded no fees to either side. ¶ 40 The trial court indicated that this ruling would be its final order and any other relief [was] to be sought on appeal. Because the issue of Branson's offsets remained outstanding until the district court issued this order, the order constitutes the trial court's only order on the issues surrounding the family trust claims. Because no prior order had been issued related to these claims, and because the trial court indicated that this was its final order, Marvin argues on appeal that he did not have an opportunity to move the court for attorney fees related to his success at the bench trial.