Court Opinion

ID: 9685862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:07:40.388166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:11.194539
License: Public Domain

*794DIXON, Justice
(concurring).
I respectfully concur.
For the first time in many years, however, this court has awarded attorney’s fees as damages for a breach of contract. I have no objections to a compensatory system which provides for complete recovery of all damages from one who wrongfully injures another, either by virtue of breach of a contractual obligation, statutory obligation, or other wrongful act. Complete recovery can very well include an award for reasonable attorney’s fees necessarily incurred because of the wrongful act of another. Certainly there is no sound reason why a litigant can recover doctor’s fees required to repair a doctor’s bad work, but cannot recover lawyer’s fees to repair a lawyer’s bad work.
Nevertheless, there is substantial jurisprudence in Louisiana holding that with certain exceptions, attorney’s fees are not recoverable as an item of damages in the absence of statutory or contractual provisions allowing their recovery.1
We should make it clear that attorney’s fees are now recognized as a recoverable item of damages, at least in professional malpractice cases.

. See, Maloney v. Oak Builders, Inc., 256 La. 85, 235 So.2d 386 (1970); Comment, 34 Tu.L.Rev. 146 (1959); Comment, 20 La.L.Rev. 389 (1960).