Court Opinion

ID: 9469008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:29:29.962256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:10.000106
License: Public Domain

POOLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because the plain wording of the statute makes it as clear as considered words can bespeak that no attorneys’ fees are payable except to the prevailing party in actions in the nature of assumpsit. There is no pleading doubt that two of the counts here were not in that nature but were tort claims for which it is simply a misapplication of the statute to grant fees.
The district court was incorrect in denying all fees; but it was correct as to the tort claims. It would seem as a matter of common sense that there should be an apportionment, allocating to the prevailing party such fees as were attributable to services incurred in the assumpsit claims and denying them as to the balance. The last paragraph of the majority opinion makes a circumambulatory suggestion that the trial judge ought to be “guided by the policy inherent” in the statute. I would forthrightly articulate that policy by saying what I have just said about apportioning.