A report on the website of Low,  Ball & Lynch discusses a case in which the California Court of Appeal addresses whether attorneys’ fees can be awarded when a plaintiff alleges both tort and contract causes of action and dismisses the entire complaint before trial.

In the case, Neeshat S. Khan v. Michael Shim, “The Court of Appeal concluded that when a plaintiff voluntarily dismisses an action involving both contract and tort claims, Civil Code § 1717(b)(2) does not preclude a defendant from recovering attorneys’ fees if the fee provision is broad enough to cover the tort claims.”

The article concludes that parties need to pay particular attention when drafting fee provisions when contract and tort claims may be brought together. “For cases with a fee provision, a liability analysis regarding the impact of attorneys’ fees should be assessed when determining whether to voluntarily dismiss a case,” in says.

Read the article.

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A lawsuit that accused a Fort Worth lawyer of cheating another lawyer out of his share of legal fees in the $51 million Chesapeake Energy settlement has been dismissed, reports The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A state district judge in Fort Worth shut down the litigation against Dan McDonald in which attorney Jim Ward was seeking up to a third of the millions in legal fees stemming from the Chesapeake case.

“In May, McDonald announced the settlement of his massive lawsuit against Chesapeake, once the face of the Barnett Shale gas drilling boom. In about 400 lawsuits representing more than 13,000 clients, McDonald accused Chesapeake of deducting higher-than-necessary production costs from royalty checks,” writes reporter Max B. Baker.

Read the Star-Telegram article.