Court Tacks $55K In Homeowner's Attorney Fees Onto $41K Damage Award Against Home Contractor Found Liable For Substandard Work

In Jefferson County, Texas, The Southeast Texas Record reports:

• A Jefferson County jury recently found that a contractor failed to honor his agreement with local resident Fred Pouncy, awarding the man $41,270 in damages and his attorney, David W. Starnes, an additional $55,000.

• As the Southeast Texas Record previously reported, Pouncy filed a lawsuit against Jesse and Bonnie Blankenship of Blankenship Welding on Dec. 30, 2008, alleging the substandard building the company constructed prevented him from obtaining windstorm insurance. The case went to trial on Oct. 25 and ended four days later, with jurors finding that the Blankenships committed fraud and deceptive trade practices(1) and breached their contract with Pouncy.

For more, see More than half of 96K verdict awarded to attorney.

(1) In Texas, successful lawsuits brought for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act entitle the winning consumer to have a court tack on his/her legal fees onto any damage award granted by a court, as was done in this case.

An important note here is that it is not all that uncommon for the attorney fee award in these types of consumer cases to exceed the damages awarded to the consumer. The beauty of some of these consumer protection laws (if you're the screwed over consumer, that is) is that experienced consumer protection attorneys who are used to working on a contingency fee basis are out there and will take on cases over seemingly small amounts, provided, of course, that there are strong facts and ample proof that the applicable consumer protection law was violated (and, of course, there is(are) a defendant(s) having deep enough pockets to cough up the cash for the legal fees in a successful suit). Consumer litigators experienced at bringing actions under the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are particularly known for bringing suits over small damage claims.

The story is silent as to whether the homeowner's attorney took the case on a contingency fee basis, and if so, whether there was any contingent fee risk multiplier (see generally, The Yale Law Jounal: The Contingency Factor In Attorney Fee Awards) applied when calculating the $55,000 legal fee.

For a survey of state consumer protection laws throughout the U.S., see National Consumer Law Center: CONSUMER PROTECTION IN THE STATES: A 50-State Report on Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices Statutes.

For informative articles from The Florida Bar Journal on how these attorney fee "tack-ons" work in Florida for violations of its consumer protection law (ie. the Florida Deceptive & Unfair Trade Practices Act - "FDUTPA", see:

• Entitlement to Attorney's Fees Under FDUTPA,
• Pleading Requirements for a Claim for Attorneys' Fees.