Attorney’s Fees and Costs in Florida Appeals: A Primer

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Everybody wants to get paid for their work, and all the better if the other side has to foot the bill for your winning appellate brief. But you can’t get an award of appellate attorney’s fees or costs in Florida state courts if you don’t follow the rules. One of the biggest rookie mistakes I see other attorneys make — and a flashing beacon that the briefwriter is a trial lawyer working his own appeal rather than someone who focuses on appellate work — is failing to file a timely motion for attorney’s fees. The second biggest mistake is filing an inadequate motion for attorney’s fees. And the third biggest mistake is failing to timely move for taxation of costs after winning an appeal. This post, while not exhaustive, is designed to help you avoid these pitfalls.

Timing is (Almost) Everything

Start, as always, by reading the rule. At this case, the rule is Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.400(b). The rule states, in relevant part:

a motion for attorneys’ fees may be served not later than the time for service of the reply brief and shall state the grounds on which recovery is sought. The assessment of attorneys’ fees may be remanded to the lower tribunal.

Now here’s where it gets fun. Failure to comply with this required timing is sufficient justification to deny an award of appellate attorney’s fees. Salley v. City of St. Petersburg, 511 So.2d 975 (Fla. 1987). The Courts of Appeal routinely deny attorney’s fees motions that are untimely. See, e.g., Barrett v. Barrett, 951 So.2d 24, 24 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007)(denying motion for fees and noting, “If a motion for attorney’s fees is untimely, why file it?”).

In my last appeal, I was appellant, and I served my motion for attorney’s fees with the Reply. Appellee’s counsel realized he goofed and served me with a motion for attorney’s fees about a week later. You can guess what cases I cited in my opposition to his motion. I’d hate to be in his shoes and have to show my opposition to his client. Don’t let this one fall through the cracks.

The Rest is Content

A motion for appellate fees need not be elaborate, but there are some basic standards. The Florida Supreme Court requires that “a party seeking attorney’s fees in an appellate court must provide substance and specify the particular contractual, statutory, or other substantive basis for an award of fees on appeal.” United Services Auto. Ass’n v. Phillips, 775 So. 2d 921, 322 (Fla. 2000). Mere citation to Rule 9.400 is inadequate. Id.

Be sure to hold the other side to these rules, too. Remember, you have ten 15 days from the date of service of a motion to oppose it. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.300(a) [Note:  The time was changed from 10 to 15 days in 2019]. If the motion is untimely or inadequate, make sure the Court knows about it.

The Amount Comes Later

When moving for appellate attorney’s fees, don’t bother spending the time to compile your bills and fees. That comes later, after you find out you’ve won. The appellate courts will usually remand to the trial court to determine the amount of fees to be awarded. When that time comes, you’ll need affidavits, including, likely, an affidavit from an expert to support the reasonableness of the fees. The intricacies of how to prove up reasonable attorney’s fees is definitely a post — and perhaps a treatise — unto itself, but I’ve covered the high points here before.

Don’t Forget Costs

Costs can add up, especially if you are the appellant and have paid for the preparation of the record on appeal. This due date is keyed off of the issuance of the mandate rendition of the appellate court’s order and — this is key — the motion is actually presented to the trial court, not the appellate court:

Costs. Costs shall be taxed in favor of the prevailing party unless the court orders otherwise. Taxable costs shall include
(1) fees for filing and service of process;
(2) charges for preparation of the record;
(3) bond premiums; and
(4) other costs permitted by law.
Costs shall be taxed by the lower tribunal on motion served within 30 days after issuance of the mandate no later than 45 days after rendition of the court’s order.

Fla. R. App. P. 9.400(a). [Note:  Updated to reflect rule changes to clear of the confusion over keying this deadline off of the issuance of the mandate!] What are “other costs permitted by law”? Good question. The Statewide Uniform Guidelines for Taxation of Costs in Civil Actions [.pdf] provide a good starting point for answering that question. Copying and computer aided research fees are generally categorized as overhead generally and are not considered taxable costs, but copies of items filed with the court can, in some instances, be taxed.

Also, the “after issuance of the mandate” language can be tricky here. As far as I can tell, the courts of appeals don’t generally issue a mandate on extraordinary writs such as certiorari. On regular appeals, the mandate generally issues within 15 days of the decision. I like to calendar this one for 20 days after the opinion/decision so I don’t have to fight over the issue of issuance of the mandate. We like to calendar this one for 30 days after rendition of the decision just to get it on file early. Better to be early than late!  [Note:  Updated 2019 to reflect rule changes to clear of the confusion over keying this deadline off of the issuance of the mandate!]

Appealing the Award of Appellate Fees or Costs

Thankfully, if you are on the wrong end of an award of attorney’s fees or costs you don’t have to initiate a whole new appeal. Rather, the Courts of Appeal will review a trial court’s award of appellate fees or costs by motion:

(c) Review. Review of orders rendered by the lower tribunal under this rule shall be by motion filed in the court within 30 days of rendition.

This isn’t a model of clarity, but “the court” in this rule refers to the appellate court. The appellate courts do, in fact, regularly review awards of fees and costs pursuant to this rule. And since the awards are generally big ticket, it’s worth doing.

The take home lesson here? When deciding who should handle your appeal, ask your potential lawyer if she or he knows the rules for getting the other side to foot the bill. And if they don’t, go find someone who does. Otherwise, you may be leaving money on the table.

[Note]: Thanks to Natalia from FIU for pointing out a typo and to R.J. Pasternack for pointing out this older article still cited to a prior version of the rules.  This post was updated 4/23/2019 to reflect the current rules.

Trial Court’s Mandamus Reviewable

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If a trial court’s stay order maintains the status quo, can the order be reviewed under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130? Or, in plain English, is an injunction by any other name still a reviewable injunction? The Third DCA says yes.

In City of Sunny Isles Beach v. Temple B’Nai Zion, Inc., No. 3D10-1137 (Sept. 8, 2010) [.pdf], the city and the Temple are wrangling over whether the Temple can demolish its existing building to make way for a new one, or whether the city can prevent demolition by naming the Temple a historic site. The trial court issued a “writ of mandamus” that ordered the city not to designate the property as an historic site while the case proceeded. The City appealed, and the Court answered the threshhold question — whether the “writ” was an appealable non-final order — in the affirmative.

Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(B) allows district courts of appeal to review “the non-final orders authorized herein”, including those that:

(B) grant, continue, modify, deny, or dissolve injunctions, or refuse to modify or dissolve injunctions;

So is a “mandamus” an injunction? It is when its purpose serves the same purpose as an injunction:

However, “[t]he very purpose of a temporary injunction is to preserve the status quo in order to prevent irreparable harm from occurring before a dispute is resolved. The Order in this case, by preserving the status quo … clearly constituted a temporary injunction.”

(citation omitted). Once framed as an injunction for review purposes, the court went on to explain that the order should also be reviewed as an injunction, and thus must comply with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610. It didn’t, and the Court therefore held the order to be an abuse of discretion.

The Role of Experts in Proving Appellate Attorney’s Fees

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You’ve won your appeal. You’ve gotten an award entitling you to appellate attorney’s fees. And now, you have to prove up what your attorney’s efforts are going to cost the other side. This is a case of “you have to spend money to make money” — because if you do not pay an expert to testify to the reasonablness of the fee, your award will be in jeopardy.

Experts Are Required to Prove Reasonablness of Fees

In Sourcetrack, LLC v. Ariba, Inc., 34 So.2d 766 (Fla. 2d DCA May 7, 2010) [.pdf], the Court struck a $302,617.75 award of appellate attorney’s fees because the party entitled to fees failed to present any expert testimony regarding the reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees. The Second DCA held that while a trial court has discretion in awarding attorney’s fees, that discretion can only be exercised based upon the evidence in the record. (Other DCA’s may be more lax on this, but why take a chance?). The Court also admonished that the award will be limited to what is considered a fair fee for a competant local attorney — so if you bring in expensive counsel from out of state, don’t expect to get reimbursed for their full fees.

What Is a Reasonable Attorney’s Fee?

Not a month later, the Second District overturned another award of fees, but this time, for being too low. In D’Alusio v. Gould & Lamb LLC, 26 So.2d 842 (Fla. 2d DCA June 2, 2010) [.pdf], the Court held that the trial court abused its discretion in awarding only $6,875 in fees where the parties and their experts pretty much agreed that the attorneys should reasonably be reimbursed for around 85 hours at $275-450 an hour for their work, for a total of $20-25,000. The Court held:

the circuit court abused its discretion in drastically reducing the number of hours that was reasonable for this appeal, in contravention of the amount agreed to by both experts, without any specific findings. Although the judge was not bound by the expert opinions or attorney affidavits in setting the award, the record is totally devoid of any evidence to support a conclusion that the award was reasonable.

Do I get Reimbursed for the Expert’s Fees?

The Court also held that the fees paid to the expert to testify as to reasonablenes of attorney’s fees are taxable as costs, and reversed the trial court’s failure to make such an award:

[e]xpert witness fees paid to the testifying expert are not discretionary if the attorney expects to be compensated for his testimony. (citations omitted).

There’s a lot of meat in D’Alusio, so definitely give it a read if you are pursuing attorney’s fees on appeal, especially in the Second DCA. It’s not enough to win an award, you have to prove what the attorney’s time was worth, too.