Business Law Journal

In Carriere v. Greene, et al., the California Court of Appeal recently reversed a trial court’s award of attorney’s fees to a plaintiff for “prevailing” on an appeal and on a post-trial motion because the plaintiff had lost at trial and was therefore not a prevailing party.  This holding clarified that even where a contractual attorney’s fees clause exists, only a prevailing party is allowed attorney’s fees — and only one side may be the prevailing party in the whole of a lawsuit.