Court Opinion

ID: 9471339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:29:32.468712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:21.612438
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Without a hearing or any rationale that I can understand, the District Court awarded plaintiff over $50,000 in attorney’s fees as costs for handling the prior appeal in this Court. The District Court did so in the face of our prior disposition of the ease in which we ordered that each party should bear his own costs.
This action is not a suit in equity. It is an action at law for battery. No statute authorizes attorney’s fees in such cases, and it is clear that there is no American common law tradition which supports an award of attorney’s fees in such cases. See Alyeska Pipeline Services Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975). Moreover, even if authority existed for such an award, attorney’s fees are awarded only as a part of costs, and this Court has already spoken on this issue in its earlier disposition when it declined to award appellate costs to plaintiff and ordered each party to bear his own costs. Thus, the award of attorney’s fees in this case is without precedent or authority and is directly contrary to a prior order of this Court.
The Court does not articulate any recognized theory for the award of attorney’s fees. The plaintiff has not created a common fund for the benefit of others, and the defendants are not accused of bad faith in the conduct of the litigation either in the District Court or in this Court. Indeed, the defendants succeeded in getting the District Court judgment reversed in part in the appellate proceeding in which plaintiff is now being awarded fees. So far as I am aware, this is the first case brought at law in the Sixth Circuit in which a party, in the absence of statute, has received attorney’s fees simply because of wrongful conduct unconnected with the trial itself. An award of attorney’s fees in this case under*882mines the “American approach [to attorney’s fees] founded on the egalitarian concept of providing relatively easy access to the courts to all citizens and reducing the threat of liability for litigation expenses as an obstacle to the commencement of a lawsuit or the assertion of a defense that might have some merit.” 10 Wright & Miller Federal Practice & Procedure § 2665, p. 172 (1983).
In addition, after the first appeal, this Court declined to award plaintiff his costs. After reversing in part the judgment of the court below in favor of plaintiff, this Court ordered that each party should pay his own costs. The majority does not now suggest any reason for reversing the previous decision of this Court on costs. I would adhere to the previous decision, and I therefore respectfully dissent.