3 ms·

A St. Petersburg man contested a $4,308 bill. Now, he could owe nearly $150k

• wahern 8y ago
  What did he expect? He ran up a $50k+ bill just for his own lawyer, all for a measly $4k. Unlike many other countries which follow the so-called English Rule where losers routinely must pay their opponents legal costs, in the U.S. we follow the American Rule where each opponent normally pays their own costs unless there's exceptionally poor behavior by one side, such as bringing or defending a suit in bad faith. Without knowing more, I would assume that the contractor here is being punished for bad behavior--not for the original behavior, but for being intransigent after the fact. Also, the fees are likely to come down as the numbers quoted seem to be what the lawyers are asking, not what the court has accepted as reasonable. The types of fees that can be assessed are quite limited, not the entirety of the costs born by the other side, so there's significant motivation to reclassify and exaggerate costs. It's the judge's job to sort this out.