Court Opinion

ID: 9844447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:02:58.30844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:35.365715
License: Public Domain

McQUADE, Chief Justice
(concurring and dissenting).
The majority opinion represents a commendable attempt to establish useful criteria for review of exemplary damage awards in civil actions. However, I cannot concur in the majority’s treatment of attorney’s fees as an element in measuring the permissible awards.
The majority opinion discusses three categories of exemplary damage cases, and places the present action in a residuary class which involves neither repeated antisocial conduct for profit nor patterns of behavior threatening or inflicting actual physical harm. Noting that this Court in the past has not favored large exemplary awards in this class of cases, the majority states that
“it would seem reasonable and good social policy in cases such as these to grant such an amount that a plaintiff would be encouraged to bring the dispute to the courts for settlement.”
This amount is specified as the plaintiffs’ reasonable attorney fees and related expenses. While it appears that the majority intends this sum to be a ceiling on recovery of exemplary damages, it is clear that the enunciated policy, of encouraging plaintiffs to bring actions in this category, would be defeated unless the sum also served as an approximate recovery floor.1 Of course, a jury that finds grounds for exemplary damages will not often award an amount substantially less than the majority would permit. A greater award is more likely, as evidenced by the present case. Consequently, under the majority opinion, reasonable attorney’s fees and related expenses do not function merely to limit exemplary damages awarded on other punitive grounds; rather, they are what the majority terms “exemplary damages.” But furthermore, it is clear that these damages are not truly exemplary. In reality, they *693•are compensatory; they are awarded to encourage plaintiffs to initiate this type of litigation, by reimbursing certain of their “out of pocket” expenses.2
The United States Supreme Court has twice held that attorney’s fees shall not be awarded under the label of exemplary damages.3 These holdings apply the general rule, that a successful litigant may not recover attorney’s fees from the loser absent a contrary agreement by the parties or express statutory provision.4 Several court-made exceptions, later codified in a number of jurisdictions, have been recognized in actions to recover for malicious prosecutions, wrongful injunctions, wrongful attachments or garnishments, breach of official duty, and the like.5 However, cases holding in favor of attorney’s fees as exemplary damages have generally avoided open conflict with the established rule.6 An illustration is supplied by Brewer v. Home-Stake Production Company,7 on which the majority rests great weight. In that decision, the Kansas Court acknowledged “that attorney’s fees * * * are not to be allowed or taxed as costs in the absence of express statutory authorization.” 8 However, it held that the jury could include counsel fees in the total award of exemplary damages, and insisted that such inclusion was not to compensate the plaintiff but to punish the defendant. At best the distinction is elusive; and in the present case under the majority’s scheme, where exemplary damages are coextensive with reasonable attorney’s fees and related expenses, the distinction simply does not exist. Again, it is clear that behind the exemplary damage fagade the majority is offering successful plaintiffs additional compensation by broadening the scope of recoverable costs.
In so doing, the majority has usurped a firmly established function of the legislature. Prior to the thirteenth century in England there was no recovery by litigants of costs in any form. Recovery of costs was initiated not by the courts but by the Statute of Gloucester (1275),9 which provided that one who obtained a writ entitling him to possession of disputed land could “recover against the Tenant the Costs of his Writ purchased, together with * * * Damages.” These “Costs” were interpreted to include attorney fees;10 and the principle was expanded by successive statutes until, in 1697, full costs of the action were awarded to plaintiffs who sued for malicious and willful trespass, the subject *694matter of the instant case.11 This statutory development preceded hy nearly two centuries the evolution in the courts of exemplary damages in their present form.12
The statutory origin of recoverable costs, including attorney fees, explains the general rule against awarding such fees in the absence of agreement or statute. No section of the Idaho Code authorizes the award of attorney fees as envisioned by the majority, and, of course, there was no agreement or stipulation in this case. It is important further to note that the legislature has frequently confronted the general issue of attorney fees, and has authorized or prohibited their award in a variety of other circumstances.13 In 1970 the legislature enacted I.C. § 12-120, authorizing award of reasonable attorney fees in all civil actions for injury to person or property where damages pleaded did not exceed $1,500; but it refrained from extending the authorization to cases more closely resembling the present one.
Noted legjal scholars have advocated that each state in this country develop a cost recovery system similar to that found in Britain.14 However, the issues involved are permeated with considerations of public policy and properly are fields for legislative inquiry.15 I regretfully conclude that the majority in this case has contaminated its otherwise admirable treatment of standards for reviewing exemplary damage awards, by overreaching the constitutional separation of powers on the question of attorney’s fees.

. The difficulty in discerning the majority’s intent is compounded by their reduction of the exemplary damage award to $2000 in the instant case without explanation of how that figure was derived.

. “[I]t is difficult to see why such expenses should be allowed under the head of exemplary damage. The plaintiff’s counsel fees are an expense incurred by him, and their reimbursement to him brings the measure of damages back toward the standard of compensation. It is an item of compensation, indeed, not usually allowed; but, nevertheless, it is really compensation.” 1 Sedgwick on Damages § 234, at 470 (9th Ed.1912).

. Oelrichs v. Spain, 82 U.S. 211, 15 Wall. (83 U.S.) 211, 21 L.Ed. 43 (1872); Day v. Woodworth, 54 U.S. 363, 13 How. (55 U.S.) 363, 14 L.Ed. 181 (1851).

. See, e. g., the cases collected in Annotation, 30 A.L.R.3d 1443, 1447-1448. Cf. I.C. § .3-205, authorizing recovery of attorney’s fees if the parties previously . have so agreed by contract.

. Quint, Attorney Fees—An Item of Damage, 41 L.A.B.J. 367 (1966); Comment, Attorney’s Fees as an Element of Damages in Louisiana, 34 Tulane L.Rev. 146 (1959); Note, Attorney’s Fees as an Element of Damages in Alabama, 4 Ala.L. Rev. 93 (1951); Comment, Counsel Fees as an Element of Special Damage, 29 B.U.L.Rev. 438 (1949).

. See, e. g., the cases cited by the majority in 30 A.L.R.3d at 1448-1453.

. 200 Kan. 96, 434 P.2d 828, 30 A.L.R.33 1435 (1967).

. 434 P.2d at 830.

. 6 Edw. I, c. 1 (1275).

. Coke, 2d Institutes, 288; quoted in Goodbart, Costs, 38 Yale L.J. 849, 852 (1929).

. 8 & 9 W. III, c. 11, f. 4 (1697).

. See Note, Exemplary Damages in the Law of Torts, 70 Harv.L.Rev. 517 (1957).

. I.C. § 28-35-202 (Uniform Commercial Credit Code, authorizing recovery by debt- or in several types of actions against creditor who acted wrongfully); I.C. § 12-120, discussed infra; I.C. § 54-1929 (laborer’s and materialmen’s claims on public works projects); I.C. § 30-1446 (violations of Securities Act); I.C. § 45-513 (mechanic’s lien); I.C. § 62-409 (railroad killing stock); I.C. § 11-402 (redemption of property from execution sale); I.C. § 45-605 (wages); I.C. §§ 72-611, 702 (workmen’s compensation).

. E. g. Charles T. McCormick, McCormick on Damages, 255-259 (1935).

. McCormick, supra note 14; Goodhart,. supra note 10. See also the calls for legislative action in the Tulane and Alabama law review notes cited at note 4, supra.