Court Opinion

ID: 9787322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:14:45.420153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:54.785407
License: Public Domain

Justice JONES,
specially concurring.
I concur in the Court’s opinion, except for the second ground stated in Section III.D for denying attorney .fees on appeal. The Court correctly denied attorney fees on appeal to the Bentleys on the ground that they are not the prevailing party. The opinion should have left it at that. The additional ground for denying attorney fees — that an attorney acting as a pro se litigant may not recovery attorney fees — is unnecessary to determination of the issue. I disagree with the second ground.
The opinion cites Bowles v. Pro Indiviso, Inc., 132 Idaho 371, 973 P.2d 142 (1999), wherein the Court did not analyze the question but merely cited to a Court of Appeals decision, Swanson & Setzke, Chtd. v. Henning, 116 Idaho 199, 774 P.2d 909 (Ct.App.1989). The Swanson & Setzke decision, holding that the rule preventing awards of attorney fees to pro se litigants included attorneys litigating pro se, was not based upon statutory construction but upon public policy considerations. The Court of Appeals determined that it would be unfair to allow a lawyer pro se litigant to recover fees where non-lawyer pro se litigants could not. The public policy considerations do not take into account that non-lawyer pro se .litigants do not have a license to practice law and are not engaged in the business of making a living through the practice of law. The Court of Appeals indicated that lawyer pro se litigants do not make disbursements for time they devote to their own litigation. However, this ignores the fact that “a lawyer’s time and advice is his stock in trade,” as so aptly put by that great lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. When a lawyer devotes time to a legal action of his own, either to collect an account, to defend a legal action, or otherwise, the attorney may not make a disbursement of funds, but the attorney does make a disbursement of merchandise that could have been sold elsewhere, i.e. his time. If the attorney prevails, there is no language in any of the statutory *398fee provisions that precludes an award of fees to the attorney. The Court of Appeals in Swanson & Setzke went even so far as to state that it would make no difference if the entity seeking fees was a professional service corporation, as opposed to the individual lawyer in the corporation, thereby permitting a de facto piercing of the professional corporation veil in order to apply its public policy. That holding is bad public policy and should not be perpetuated by this Court.