Bresky Law recently obtained entitlement to appellate attorney\u2019s fees in several appeals in which it prevailed. Additionally, Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.400(a) provides that a prevailing party on appeal is entitled to recover its costs for litigating an appeal unless the appellate court orders otherwise. The recovery of appellate attorney\u2019s fees and costs following a victory on appeal can sometimes be confusing for parties unfamiliar with the procedure. A brief explanation of the process follows. The general procedure is outlined below, but will differ somewhat where fees are granted as a sanction for a party\u2019s or attorney\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n
The most important point for practitioners to understand in recovering appellate attorney\u2019s fees is that the appellate court typically only awards a party entitlement to appellate attorney\u2019s fees. A party\u2019s entitlement to fees will be based upon a substantive statute or contract. The party will then need to seek the actual award of appellate attorney\u2019s fees in the trial court following remand. However, the appellate court does not award entitlement to fees automatically \u2013 a party must file a motion requesting its fees in the appellate court.<\/p>\n
The correct procedure for a party to ensure recovery of its appellate attorney\u2019s fees is to first make sure to file a timely motion for appellate attorney\u2019s fees in the appellate court. Rule 9.400(b) requires that a fees motion be filed no later than the time for the appellant\u2019s reply brief, and must state the grounds for entitlement. If the party requesting fees prevails on appeal and the appellate court grants the motion for fees, the appellate court\u2019s order will often contain language stating that the trial court is to determine the amount. In family law cases, the appellate court\u2019s order will often state that the fees are granted conditioned upon the trial court\u2019s determination of the party\u2019s need and the other party’s ability to pay.<\/p>\n
The procedure to recover costs is a bit simpler. No motion requesting entitlement to costs is necessary in the appellate court. Pursuant to Rule 9.400(a), a party has thirty days from the issuance of the appellate court\u2019s mandate to serve a motion in the trial court seeking the party\u2019s appellate costs for the successful appeal. Rule 9.400(a) provides a list of included taxable cost items. Although there is no corresponding 30-day deadline for a motion for appellate attorney fees to be filed in the trial court, the better practice is to file both the motion for costs and fees in the trial court within thirty days of the appellate court mandate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bresky Law recently obtained entitlement to appellate attorney\u2019s fees in several appeals in which it prevailed. Additionally, Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.400(a) provides that a prevailing party on appeal is entitled to recover its costs for litigating an appeal unless the appellate court orders otherwise. The recovery of appellate attorney\u2019s fees and costs following…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1812,1807],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attorneys-fees","category-bresky-appellate-cases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}