Opinion ID: 2514161
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the nisi prius counsel fee and costs award is affirmed

Text: ¶ 23 Oklahoma Property also sought appellate review of the trial court's order which granted Harkrider an attorney's fee and costs under the provisions of 12 O.S.1991 § 1190 (B)(1). That statute authorizes the taxation of costs, including a reasonable attorney's fee, in favor of the prevailing party in a garnishment proceeding where the judgment creditor recovers more than the garnishee admits in its answer. [48] Although the issue was properly preserved and raised on appeal, COCA failed to dispose of it. While neither party addressed the counsel-fee and taxation of costs issue on certiorari, we do so under the authority of Hough v. Leonard. [49] ¶ 24 In accordance with the court's rules that bar briefs in appeals under the accelerated-process rubric, the insurer did  and could do  no more than raise the costs-and-fee issue in its petition in error. [50] We construe Oklahoma Property's quest for reversal of the counsel-fee and-costs award as resting on its claim that it was reversible error for the trial court to give Harkrider prevailing party status. [51] ¶ 25 Ancillary orders that are dependent upon the viability of an underlying judgment (and are not otherwise challenged on their own merits) are nullified or affirmed on appeal by the disposition of the judgment on which they rest. [52] An attorney's fee and costs award, based upon the prevailing party status of one of the litigants, is dependent postjudgment relief, and is inexorably tied to the fate of the judgment creating the successful litigant's prevailing party status. Having reinstated on certiorari the nisi prius judgment upon which Harkrider's attorney's fee and costs award is based, we must now affirm the trial court's grant to Harkrider of a counsel fee and costs.