{"id":898460,"date":"2021-02-04T14:58:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T21:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=898460"},"modified":"2021-02-04T14:58:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T21:58:47","slug":"attorneys-fee-prevailing-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/attorneys-fee-prevailing-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Note: Discretion in Determining Prevailing Party for Purposes of Attorney&#8217;s Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>David Adelstein | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridaconstructionlegalupdates.com\/quick-note-discretion-in-determining-prevailing-party-for-purposes-of-attorneys-fees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Florida Construction Legal Updates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In prior\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridaconstructionlegalupdates.com\/quick-note-attorneys-fees-and-the-significant-issues-test\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">articles<\/a>\u00a0I have discussed that courts apply the\u00a0<strong>significant issues test<\/strong>\u00a0to determine the prevailing party for purposes of being entitled to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/devils-details-dispute-resolution-attorneys-fees-contract-clauses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">attorney\u2019s fees<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>A party that recovers an affirmative judgement is NOT the de facto prevailing party for purposes of an entitlement to attorney\u2019s fees in a breach of contract action (or a construction lien foreclosure action).\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0This was the issue in a recent appeal discussed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/provemyfloridacase.com\/prevailing-party-and-attorneys-fees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>\u00a0where the party that recovered an affirmative judgment on a breach of contract case was not deemed the prevailing party for purposes of attorney\u2019s fees.\u00a0 While the party prevailed on one of its claims, it did not prevail on others, and it recovered less than half of the damages it originally sought.\u00a0 The appellate court, affirming the trial court, held that the trial court has discretion to determine that the party that recovered an affirmative judgement was not the prevailing party entitled to its attorney\u2019s fees under the signifiant issues test. \u00a0This was not what the party was expecting when the attorney\u2019s fees it expended far exceeded the judgment it recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is not an objective, brightline standard to determine which party should be deemed the prevailing party for purposes of an attorney\u2019s fees award.&nbsp; There is subjectivity involved at the discretion of the trial court.&nbsp; This is a valuable consideration as the case progresses and there are decisions relating to settlement. &nbsp;Banking on recovering attorney\u2019s fees is not always the wisest of choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Adelstein | Florida Construction Legal Updates In prior\u00a0articles\u00a0I have discussed that courts apply the\u00a0significant issues test\u00a0to determine the prevailing party for purposes of being entitled to attorney\u2019s fees.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A party that recovers an affirmative judgement is NOT the de facto prevailing party for purposes of an entitlement to attorney\u2019s fees in a breach of contract&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/attorneys-fee-prevailing-party\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Quick Note: Discretion in Determining Prevailing Party for Purposes of Attorney&#8217;s Fees<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[9895,10689,11413],"class_list":["post-898460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-contracts","tag-advise-consult","tag-attorneys-fee-clause","tag-significant-issues-test","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Quick Note: Discretion in Determining Prevailing Party for Purposes of Attorney&#039;s Fees - Advise &amp; 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