Court Opinion

ID: 9850705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:01:45.686806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:41.910341
License: Public Domain

*244BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I.
The majority opinion correctly recognizes that ATI could have filed an action against Simplot before the applicable statute of limitations had run. Instead, ATI waited, to its peril. On this ground I concur with the majority opinion’s determination of the appeal.
II.
In my dissent from the award of fees, as stated before, I continue “to adhere to the assertions of Donaldson, J. and Bistline, J. in Minnich v. Gem State Developers, Inc., 99 Idaho 911, 919, 591 P.2d 1078, 1086 (1979), that this Court has neither inherent nor statutory authority to award attorney fees on appeals____” Lowery v. Bd. of County Com’rs, 117 Idaho 1079, 1082, 793 P.2d 1251, 1254 (1990) (Bistline, J. specially concurring). Furthermore, this Court had begun to restrict the award of fees on appeal. See Brower v. DuPont De Nemours & Co., 117 Idaho 780, 792 P.2d 345 (1990). Today’s majority opinion may unfortunately be the beginning of the reversal of that welcome trend. This is not to suggest that a contract clause awarding fees to the prevailing party can be disregarded. Even where it was inserted in a bargained contract so as to favor only one of the parties, it has been the basis for an award.
In that regard, recollection has it that Montana has developed case law which provides that a unilateral fees provision in a contract which favors only one party nevertheless will be construed to equally favor the other as well, depending only on who, if anyone, is the prevailing party. That philosophy in my view is soundly principled and should operate to diminish the overreaching which may take place where the parties to an agreement have not been on equal footing.