Opinion ID: 28979
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Abbott

Text: 18 Then along came Abbott. It required us to decide, in the context of Louisiana class actions, whether the potential for an award of attorney's fees under a Louisiana statute specific to the cause of action at issue (price fixing in Abbott ) must be included by the district court in determining the amount in controversy; and, if so, how such fees are to be attributed. 19 Being a price-fixing case rather than an ordinary tort case, Abbott implicated § 51:137, which provides: 19 Any person who is injured in his business or property by any person by reason of any act or thing forbidden by this Part may sue in any court of competent jurisdiction and shall recover threefold the damages sustained by him, the cost of suit, and a reasonable attorney's fee. 20 20 This provision obviously requires the court to tax attorney's fees (1) to the losing defendant, (2) over and above damages, and (3) in addition to other costs. Generally, in the context of a Louisiana class action, attorney's fees under § 51:137 would be attributable pro rata to each prevailing class member as a person who is injured. 21 Thus, the sole relevant issue in Abbott was whether art. 595(A) changes the attribution to require that the total amount of attorney's fees assessable against the defendant under § 51:137 be attributed exclusively and entirely to the class representatives. 21 None dispute that in Abbott we answered this question in the affirmative, holding that, in calculating the amount in controversy, all awardable attorney's fees must be attributed to the class representatives to the exclusion of the other members of the class. 22 Neither is it disputed that we based that holding on art. 595(A)'s requirement that attorney's fees allowed as an element of litigation expenses are to be allowed exclusively to the class representatives. 22 Although today's inquiry begins with Abbott 's rule attributing all class action attorney's fees to the class representatives, it is important to recognize at this juncture that in Abbott we were not required to decide, and in fact could not and thus did not decide, whether, in the absence of a separate statute imposing attorney's fees on the losing defendant (such as § 51:137 in Abbott ), art. 595(A) either requires or permits the attorney's fees that the court may allow to the class representatives to be included in the jurisdictional-amount calculation. The obvious reason why this issue (which is the one squarely presented to us today) was not before us in Abbott is that there was present in Abbott a state statute (§ 51:137), that (1) was specific to the price-fixing cause of action, (2) was separate from and in addition to art. 595(A), and (3) mandated the payment of attorney's fees to prevailing class members. Therefore, the only question presented in Abbott was whether, for purposes of calculating the amount in controversy, attorney's fees recoverable under § 51:137 were attributable (1) ratably to all class members, or (2) exclusively (and entirely) to the class representatives. Thus, art. 595(A)'s sole function in Abbott was to supply the ratio decidendi for holding that attorney's fees allowable in a Louisiana class action must be attributed to the class representatives. It follows, then, that because a separate attorney's-fees statute was present in Abbott, anything we might have said about attorney's fees allowable under art. 595(A), when standing alone, would have been dicta. 23 Nevertheless, some judges of the Eastern District of Louisiana have read Abbott expansively, apparently conflating its attribution holding with the unaddressed question of art. 595(A)'s authorizing the allowance of attorney's fees vel non. These jurists have read Abbott to stand for the proposition that, absent some other attorney's fees statute, the attorney's fees allowable (as distinct from attributable ) under art. 595(A) cannot be counted toward the class representatives' amount in controversy. More than one of these judges seized on Abbott 's use of the word key 23 in referencing to § 51:137, to read our holding as requiring the presence of a separate attorney's fees statute every time. But such a reading would make the word key carry much more water than intended. 24 Key in Abbott is not synonymous with indispensable or prerequisite or  sine qua non , or necessary. It is merely a rhetorical segue to the factual observation that, in that particular case, the attorney's fees, which happened to be authorized by a separate statute, were attributable to the class representatives and thus includable in calculating the amount in controversy. This in turn obviated any need to look to art. 595(A) as a possible source of authority to allow attorney's fees. Simply put, our reference in Abbott to the other statute as key 24 cannot be read to mean that attorney's fees must be supplied by a separate statute in every case. In fact, after that segue, § 51:137 is never again mentioned in the Abbott opinion: The entire substantive analysis focuses on the attribution function of art. 595(A), never mentioning its authorization function. 25 As settled law, Abbott 's rule of attribution of attorney's fees to the class representatives is not questioned by the parties. Abbott did not, however — and, given the presence of § 51:137, could not — address whether, standing alone, art. 595(A) can also serve as an independent source of attorney's fees in the absence of a separate statutory source. This is the question that has divided the judges of the Eastern District of Louisiana since Abbott, and this is the res nova question squarely presented today. 26 As noted, there is no provision of Louisiana law that allows, much less commands, the court to impose an award of attorney's fees on the defendant who is cast in judgment in an individual ( non -class action) tort case. So, if this were an individual tort action rather than a class action, the determination of the amount in controversy for purposes of removal and remand could not include attorney's fees. But alas, this is a Louisiana class action, so we are bound, in the wake of Abbott, to analyze art. 595(A) further and determine whether, in addition to being the source of Abbott 's holding that attorney's fees are attributable to class representatives, this code article, standing alone, is also the source of a class-action exception to Louisiana's no-attorney's-fees-in-tort-suits rule. For the reasons hereafter explained, we hold that it is. 27