Texas Requires New Trial On Attorney’s Fee Award After Damages Cut On Appeal

The Texas Supreme Court has considered the effect on an attorney’s fee award of an appellate ruling that drastically reduced the damages awarded.

In Barker v. Eckman, 213 S.W.3d 306 (Tex. Nov. 17, 2006), plaintiffs sued for multiple breaches of contract going back several years. Over objections that most of the claims were untimely, the court entered judgment on a jury verdict for $112,000 and for attorney’s fees under the contract of $250,000. The intermediate appellate court struck all but $16,180 in damages, but held that appeal of the attorney’s fees issue had been waived. The Supreme Court upheld the reduction in damages, but reversed on the waiver issue.

Finding that there was no proper record on which to base a reduction of the fee award at the appellate level, the court remanded for a new trial on the amount of fees attributable to the upheld claims. The court noted that “[n]ot every appellate adjustment to the damages which a jury considered as ‘results obtained’ when making attorney’s fees findings will require reversal,” but in this case the large reduction in damages showed that the error was not harmless and required a new trial.