Opinion ID: 184923
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fees for Unsuccessful Defense on Appeal in Bender I

Text: 20 The district court's fee award included $21,500 for legal services incurred by the FDIC in its unsuccessful defense of the 15 percent attorney's fee provision in Bender I. Appellants argue that the court erred in including this amount because the FDIC is not entitled to reimbursement for fees incurred litigating an issue upon which it did not prevail. In response, the FDIC asserts that the Bender I appeal involved issues in addition to the validity of the 15 percent provision.It also maintains that, because it was the prevailing party in the litigation taken as a whole, the award properly included fees incurred in connection with the earlier appeal. 21 In disposing of the first argument, we need go no further than quote from the FDIC's final brief in Bender I: The only issues on appeal are the contractual fifteen percent attorney fees awarded against [Van Dorn Retail and the Benders]. The accuracy of this statement is borne out by the fact that the FDIC's entitlement to 15 percent fees is the only issue we addressed in our Bender I opinion. 22 Appellants prevail on the second argument as well. In Singer v. Shannon & Luchs Co., 779 F.2d 69 (D.C. Cir. 1985), we noted that a court may grant a fee award when specially authorized by contract or statute, id. at 70, but cautioned that [w]here the merit or necessity of the creditor's claim or defense is successfully challenged, courts may decline to enforce attorney's fee provisions, id. at 71 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). See also Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 440 (1983) (Where [a party] has failed to prevail on a claim that is distinct in all respects from his successful claims, the hours spent on the unsuccessful claim should be excluded in considering the amount of a reasonable fee.); Anthony v. Sullivan, 982 F.2d 586, 589 (D.C. Cir. 1993) ([N]o fee may be granted for work done on claims on which the party did not prevail, unless the unsuccessful claims were submitted as alternative grounds for a successful outcome that the plaintiff did actually achieve.) (emphasis in original). Although Hensley and Anthony dealt with statutory fee award provisions, we see no reason (absent contractual language to the contrary) why the same commonsense standard should not apply to fees awarded by agreement of the parties. 23 Accordingly, we reverse the district court's award of the $21,500 attributable to the Bender I litigation.