A party should never bank on recovering their attorneys’ fees when prosecuting or defending a construction lien foreclosure action.

 

In a construction lien action, the prevailing party has been statutorily entitled to recover their reasonable attorneys’ fees. Fla.Stat. §713.29.   This is important since a party can only recover their attorneys’ fees if there is a statutory or contractual basis to do so.

 

 

The Florida Supreme Court in Trytek v. Gale Indus., Inc., 3 So.3d 1194 (Fla. 2009), analyzed what it meant to be a prevailing party for purposes of attorneys’ fees in a construction lien action and held that that the significant issues test is the test to determine the prevailing party. Under this test, the prevailing party is not necessarily the party that wins a sum of money at trial, but, rather, the party that wins the significant issues in the case. Hence, it is more than possible that the party that wins the significant issues based on the circumstances of the case is not the party that wins money. The Florida Supreme Court further held that a court can rule that no party is the prevailing party in this case.

 

The decision in Trytek has led to confusion, as well as consternation, because there is no objective or qualitative standard to determine the prevailing party for purposes of attorneys’ fees under the significant issues test. Instead, a pure subjective standard is used to determine the prevailing party that is not necessarily tied to the outcome of the case; and, importantly, this decision permits the trial court to find no prevailing party. This is noteworthy because the recovery of attorneys’ fees oftentimes drives the outcome of a case because the fees can be more than the amount in controversy.   Now, with a subjective test used to determine whether a party can recover their attorneys’ fees, a party must consider that they may not be entitled to their attorneys’ fees when deciding how to pursue or defend a construction lien foreclosure action.

 

The recent case of Sheppard v. M&R Plumbing, Inc., 36 Fla. L. Weekly D1697b (Fla. 1st DCA 2011), elaborates on the confusion of the significant issues test and the reason why a party should not bank on recovering their attorneys’ fees in a construction lien foreclosure action. In this case, a plumber installed a water treatment system in a house. Apparently, there was no written contract and there was no meeting of minds with respect to the costs to install this water treatment system. The plumber recorded a construction lien and foreclosed the lien and, as an alternative cause of action, sued the owner for quantum meruit (unjust enrichment) for the reasonable value of labor, services, and materials it provided to the owner.

 

The reason the plumber sued the owner to foreclose a construction lien and for quantum meruit is because there was uncertainty as to whether a contract existed between the owner and the plumber. A construction lien, however, can only arise if there is a contract (oral or written)—no contract means no lien rights. Under a quantum meruit action, there is an acknowledgment that a contract does not exist, but because value was allegedly provided, the party should be entitled to the reasonable cost of that value.

 

Whether the plumber prevailed on its construction lien action or alternative quantum meruit action should have been crucial for a determination of which party should be deemed a prevailing party for purposes of recovering its attorney fees. The reason being that a party does not have any legal basis to recover their attorneys’ fees in a quantum meruit action since there is no statutory or contractual basis to recover fees in this type of action.

 

At trial, a jury decided that a contract did not exist between the plumber and the owner. Because a contract did not exist, the plumber could not prevail on its construction lien action. However, the jury did decide that the plumber did provide value to the owner of approximately $13,000 and ruled in favor of the plumber on its alternative quantum meruit action.

 

The issue on appeal to the First District was whether the owner or the plumber should be deemed the prevailing party for purposes of fees. From a practical standpoint, it would make sense that the owner prevailed on the significant issues test because the owner prevailed in entirety on the construction lien foreclosure action, importantly, the only count that entitled a party to recover attorneys’ fees. But, this rationale is not the rationale employed by the First District. Instead, the First District maintained:

 

“While we agree the Shephards [owner] must now be deemed the prevailing parties on the lien foreclosure count, entry of the money judgment in favor of M&R [plumber] on the quantum meruit count made M&R, not the Shephards, the prevailing party in the litigation, viewing the entire ‘action brought’ as a whole.”

 

Neither party was deemed the prevailing party for purposes of attorneys’ fees. This ruling, unfortunately, leads to further confusion and frustration on when a party will be deemed the prevailing party in a construction lien action. Here, the plumber lost in entirety its lien action despite being awarded some money in its quantum meruit action (again, an equity action that does not afford the prevailing party to attorneys’ fees). This was overlooked by the First District leaving an owner that prevailed on the significant issues of the lien action to bear all of its attorneys’ fees. The only conclusion that can be reached from this decision is that, again, there is no objective or qualitative way to determine the prevailing party in a construction lien foreclosure action, especially given the ruling in this case where a party can win the lien action but lose an alternative equity action and still not be deemed the prevailing party.

 

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.