Court Opinion

ID: 9654964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:56:23.146272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.058160
License: Public Domain

ALTENBERND, Judge,
Concurring.
I fully concur in this opinion. I write only to observe that Mr. Baker has won the most Pyrrhic of victories. We reverse a temporary award of trial fees merely to remand the matter for another hearing on temporary fees. Although we have little information about the assets of this family, this relatively small award of temporary fees could almost certainly be adjusted at the time of the final judgment if that proved necessary.
Assuming that $200 an hour would be a reasonable hourly rate in the trial court, it is completely obvious from this record that Mrs. Baker’s attorney had already spent at least 37.5 hours representing her client at what Mr. Baker’s attorney described at the hearing as “all these numerous hours in depositions over the past two weeks.” Thus, Mr. Baker has simply incurred the cost of this appeal, including attorney’s fees for himself and for his wife, in order to return to the trial court for a hearing where a larger award of temporary fees will almost certainly occur.
This family appears to be a typical, middle-class family with children; the wisdom of this appeal evades me. But for the precedents governing this issue, I would have treated the omission of the findings in the order on appeal as harmless error and would have affirmed this appeal.