#attorneysfees

[ipconsultinggroup-1]

🎯 Oracle wins $58.5 mln in attorneys' fees in Rimini copyright case

[mountainviewlegalsc-blog]

South Carolina Bankruptcy Court Awards Fees and Sanctions Against Mortgage Creditor for Delay and Lack of Good Faith in Mortgage Modification Process

Debtor included a Motion for Loss Mitigation/Mortgage Modification within their Chapter 13 Plan and properly served notice upon the creditor.  The creditor did not object.  

Debtors timely filed their loss mitigation/mortgage modification (“LM/MM”) application to the creditor through the Default Mitigation Management Portal (“Portal”).  Emphasizing that the mortgage creditor has a duty to engage in Loss Mitigation/Mortgage Modification process in good faith that stems from both the Order on Debtor’s Motion and Amended Operating Order 15-01, the Court held that sanctions were appropriate.  

The Court pointed out that creditor failed to timely respond to Debtors regarding whether there were missing or additional documents, which caused all of Debtors’ documents to expire.  Moreover, while Debtors’ were working to update documents, creditor failed to disclose that it lacked authority to modify the loan.  Because of creditor’s failure to disclose, Debtors also incurred additional attorney’s fees, owed an additional twelve months in arrearage, and lost twelve months of the plan during which the arrearage payments could have been made.  

The Court ordered creditor to pay $2000 in attorney’s fees and $1000 in civil contempt fees to South Carolina Legal Services or the South Carolina Bar Foundation.

http://www.scb.uscourts.gov/MessageWebService/ViewOpinion.aspx?id=1325\

[shelleysmithjd-blog]

Post-Judgment Attorney’s Fees Awarded for Separate Veil Piercing Suit

Judgment creditor was entitled to recover attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing judgment creditor’s sole shareholder in a separate action to pierce the corporate veil based on the fee recovery provision of the contract giving rise to the judgment. 

In what it described as a case of first impression, Steiner Elec. Co. v. Maniscalco, 2016 IL App (1st) 132023, ¶¶ 40, 54-55, an Illinois appellate court reversed the circuit court’s ruling refusing to award the judgment debtor attorney’s fees expended in its suit to pierce the corporate veil where the attorney’s fees provision was contractual in the underlying, ancillary suit. 

Plaintiff had obtained a default judgment against the defendant for the cost of products sold on credit, plus finance charges, attorneys fees, expenses and costs. Id. ¶ 2. Before the judgment was entered, however, the defendant had been dissolved. Id.  ¶ 1. After pursuing postjudgment proceedings in which it collected extensive discovery of the dissolved defendant’s financial records, plaintiff filed the veil piercing suit against the defendant’s shareholder and an affiliated company. Id. ¶¶ 43-44. The lower court denied plaintiff’s request for post-judgment attorney’s fees on the grounds that there was no contractual agreement or statutory basis for such fees. Id. ¶ 45. 

The appellate court disagreed, finding sufficient for this purpose the reference in the parties’ underlying purchase agreement to “‘all reasonable costs of collection including attorney fees and expenses.’”  Id. ¶ 40.  And while there was no Illinois state case law on point, the court relied on the reasoning in the Seventh Circuit’s decision granting post-judgment attorney’s fees for a veil piercing action in Centerpoint Energy Services, Inc. v. Halim, 743 F.3d 503 (7th Cir. 2014). Id. ¶¶ 49-50. 

Finally, the court noted that the merger doctrine does not bar post-judgment attorney’s fees, since the claim for fees is ancillary to the underlying cause of action. Id. ¶ 54 (citing Poilevey v. Spivack, 368 Ill. App. 3d 412, 415 (1st Dist. 2006)).