Indiana Court Finds Attorneys’ Fees Recoverable Under General Wrongful Death Statute
The Indiana Court of Appeals held last week that attorneys’ fees are recoverable under Indiana’s General Wrongful Death Statute. The court also found that any award of such fees is compensatory, must be limited to the amount actually lost, and should be reduced by any fault allocation. The case involved an explosion caused by a propane gas leak.
The defendants appealed a lower court’s award of attorneys’ fees to plaintiff’s estate in a wrongful death suit, arguing that Indiana’s general wrongful death statute did not allow for recovery of attorneys’ fees where the decedent was survived by a family member. The Court of Appeals found that the statute did allow for such recovery. Focusing on the statute’s omnibus provision, which states that general wrongful death damages are “‘includ[ed],but not limited to’ damages of the type explicitly delineated” therein, the court found that this portion of the statute was ambiguous and required interpretation. The court explained that attorneys’ fees were compensatory in nature and, therefore, were the “type” of damages contemplated by the statute. Further, attorneys’ fees were awarded under other Indiana wrongful death statutes, and thus it would be illogical for attorneys’ fees to be precluded under the statute in question for just one class of decedents. The court also found that the principle of legislative acquiescence dictated that attorneys’ fees should be awarded.
The defendants also argued that the award of attorney’s fees should be limited to the actual amount delineated in the contingency agreement between the plaintiff and the attorneys rather than on the attorneys’ general billing rate. The appeals court agreed, explaining that because attorneys’ fees are compensatory in nature, only the actual amount that the plaintiff was billed should be awarded. Any additional amount would result in a windfall. Lastly, the plaintiff also cross-appealed, arguing that the lower court should not have reduced the award of attorneys’ fees by the percentage of non-party fault allocated by the jury. The appeals court found that because attorneys’ fees are compensatory, the Indiana Comparative Fault Act applied and it was proper for the lower court to reduce the attorneys’ fees in proportion with the fault allocation.
