Court Opinion

ID: 9607493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:59:13.407025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:39.181757
License: Public Domain

PIATHAWAY and MOLLOY, Judges
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) :
The undersigned judges, being the majority of the court on this appeal, concur in the foregoing opinion with the exception of the disposition of the matter of attorney’s fees.
There is no complaint made on appeal as to the amount of the fees allowed by the lower court but only as to whether the same should be allowed at all. Contracts for payment of attorney’s fees are enforced in accordance with the terms of the *371contract. 25 C.J.S. Damages § 50 c, p. 785; 17 Am.Jur.2d Contracts § 292, p. 707. In our opinion, this was a suit “to enforce or cancel” the subject contract. The buyer being the prevailing party in that suit should recover its reasonable attorney’s fees under the provisions of the subject contract. Provisions of this type should be given a reasonably broad meaning and not an exact and restrictive meaning. Leventhal v. Krinsky, 325 Mass. 336, 90 N.E.2d 545, 17 A.L.R.2d 281, 287 (1950).
For the reasons expressed in the opinion of Judge Frey, and those stated herein, the judgment below is modified so as to reduce the judgment to the sum of $72,200, consisting of the following items: $60,000, principal paid on the contract, $4,700 as interest on this amount from January 31, 1962 (the date of retaking of possession by the seller) to May 20, 1963 (the date of judgment in the lower court), and $7,500, the attorney’s fees incurred in this action as determined by the lower court. The said judgment of $72,200 is to bear interest from May 20, 1963, the date of the judgment in the lower court.
As so modified, the judgment below is affirmed.