VANESSA COLLEY v. JOHN S. COLLEY, III
No. M2021-00731-SC-R11-CV
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE
October 4, 2023 Session; FILED 04/29/2025
HOLLY KIRBY, C.J.
In this
Tenn. R. App. P. 11 Appeal by Permission; Judgment of the Court of Appeals Reversed; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed; Remanded to the Circuit Court
HOLLY KIRBY, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROGER A. PAGE and DWIGHT E. TARWATER, JJ., joined. SARAH K. CAMPBELL, J. filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, in which JEFFREY S. BIVINS, J., joined.
Daniel A. Horwitz, Lindsay Smith, and Melissa K. Dix, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Vanessa Turner (formerly Colley).
P. Marlene Boshears, Franklin, Tennessee, for the appellee, John S. Colley, III.
Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée Sophia Blumstein, Solicitor General; J. Matthew Rice, Associate Solicitor General & Special Assistant to the Solicitor General; and Philip Hammersley, Assistant Solicitor General, for the Amicus Curiae, State of Tennessee.
OPINION
The question presented in this appeal involves only the award of attorney fees. A brief recounting of the factual and procedural background provides context for our analysis.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Vanessa Turner, formerly Vanessa Colley (“Wife“) and John S. Colley, III (“Husband“) were divorced on July 18, 2012. They had three children, all minors at the time of the divorce. As a part of their divorce, Wife and Husband entered into a marital dissolution agreement (“MDA“) and a permanent parenting plan that named Wife as the primary residential parent but gave them joint decision-making authority on educational matters. The MDA and the parenting plan were approved by the trial court and incorporated into the final decree.
Unfortunately, the divorce did not end the parties’ litigation. Within a month after their 2012 divorce became final, the parties filed competing motions about where their youngest child would attend middle school, including cross-motions for injunctive relief. Though Wife, the primary residential parent, had moved to Williamson County and was substitute teaching in the Williamson County school system, Husband maintained that the youngest child should continue to attend school in Maury County. Colley v. Colley, No. M2014-02495-COA-R3-CV, 2016 WL 3633376, at *1–2 (Tenn. Ct. App. June 28, 2016). Wife‘s motion was followed by a petition to modify the parenting plan to give her sole decision-making authority on educational matters. Id. at *2. Months of conflict ensued, with the child involved in the parents’ disputes, culminating in an evidentiary hearing before
After the hearing, the trial court entered an order in August 2013. Id. at *5. In the order, the court deemed Wife a credible and reasonable witness and found that Husband was honest but often unreasonable on the issues, so it credited Wife‘s testimony over the testimony of Husband. Id. at *7. The order denied Husband‘s request for injunctive relief.2 It modified the parenting plan by giving Wife sole decision-making authority on educational matters. Id. The court awarded Wife $12,500 under the attorney fee provision in the parties’ MDA. Id.
Several months after this ruling, Husband filed a motion for recusal of the trial judge, which was denied. Id. at *8. The recusal motion was followed by a petition to modify custody and child support. Id. Later, Husband filed a motion to hold Wife in contempt. Id. at *10. The contempt motion was denied and the trial court awarded Wife attorney fees for having to defend against it. Id.
Meanwhile, the parties engaged in discovery and preparation on Husband‘s pending petition to modify custody and child support. Ultimately, nearly a year and a half after it was filed, Husband nonsuited his petition. Id. at *8.
In the meantime, Husband, an attorney, filed an appeal of the trial court‘s August 2013 order. Representing himself on appeal, Husband raised numerous issues. Id. at *10. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court and awarded Wife her attorney fees on appeal pursuant to the MDA. Id. at *15. This Court denied Husband‘s request for permission for a further appeal. Id., perm. app. denied (Tenn. Nov. 17, 2016).
Resolution of this first appeal did not end the litigation between the parties. Wife became engaged to remarry, with her marriage scheduled to take place in March 2019. In January 2019, Husband filed a petition to terminate Wife‘s transitional alimony, based on his allegation that Wife was cohabiting with her fiancé prior to her scheduled remarriage. See
Wife filed her answer in February 2019 and an amended answer a month later. She admitted Husband had satisfied his child support and alimony in solido obligations.
Wife asked the trial court to dismiss Husband‘s petition and assess costs against him. She asked the trial court to award her “the reasonable attorney fees she incurred in being forced to defend this unnecessary action.”
Wife‘s answer left two issues in dispute: (1) whether Husband owed alimony for the two-month period between the date he filed his petition and the date Wife was scheduled to remarry, and (2) whether Wife was liable for penalties and interest resulting from the parties’ 2010 tax return. Discovery ensued.
Before long, Wife filed a motion for a protective order, seeking protection from discovery requests she maintained were overbroad and unnecessary. The discovery from which Wife sought protection included Husband‘s request that Wife “[p]roduce your current cellular phone, and any other cell phones you have used since January 1, 2018,” to “[i]dentify all persons by name, address, employer, respective holiday, and phone number, who were present at [Wife‘s fiancé‘s address] on Thanksgiving and Christmas,” and finally to “produce all photographs and videos taken at [Wife‘s fiancé‘s address] on Christmas and Thanksgiving.” Wife called it “a fishing expedition by my ex-Husband” and cited Husband‘s “history of abusing proceedings to run up fees and to use the information obtained to harass her.”
As to the request to relinquish her cell phone, Wife argued that Husband was seeking “huge amounts of private data completely unrelated to this litigation.” Husband responded by claiming that the geolocation of Wife‘s phone and the photographs and videos on her phone were relevant.
In May 2019, the trial court granted Wife‘s motion for protective order in part. However, it ordered Wife to produce specific items.5
Mediation conducted in June 2019 failed. Wife filed a motion asking the trial court to set the matter for trial.
In December 2019, Wife filed a motion for clarification of the May 2019 order on Wife‘s motion for protective order. The motion recounted what she called Husband‘s history of “harassing” her through continued post-divorce litigation:
[T]his case has a very lengthy history, with numerous actions initiated by [Husband], who is an attorney himself . . . .
This current action is basically about two months of alimony paid by [Husband] prior to it being terminated given the March 2019 remarriage of [Wife]
and seeking to modify a final decree and suddenly to impose a non-existent judgment, all 7 years after the decree became final. These parties were divorced on July 18, 2012; since that date 7 years ago, [Husband] has filed 6 post-divorce actions, the first less than a month after the divorce and the most recent (this one) on January 9, 2019—he has also pursued an unsuccessful appeal of one of the rulings of this Court, sought to have the Court recuse itself after ruling against him, and took a voluntary non-suit on one of his Petitions (to change custody) after forcing [Wife] to defend it for a year and a half.
[Husband] has also filed many Motions and other pleadings over the past 7 years, forcing [Wife] to stay in litigation with him almost on a non-stop basis since the divorce.
This history of [Husband] harassing [Wife] through the legal system has continued in this latest action; [Husband] included a demand to set a judgment without any proof to support it and which was the subject of one of [Husband‘s] previous actions, but never pursued.
Addressing the specific relief sought in the motion—protection from having to give Husband contact information for her new in-laws, who were not involved with the parties’ disputes—Wife further described Husband‘s post-divorce litigation practices:
[Wife] is particularly afraid to provide telephone numbers or even emails for these people, who are her now-husband‘s family with no relationship to this litigation; [Wife] believes that given the history of this matter, providing names and/or email addresses will lead to continued harassment, this time of her new in[-]laws.
. . . .
[Wife] reminds this Court, which has heard this case for years and years, that she has suffered an extensive history of harassment by [Husband], including being forced to block him from texting and/or calling her, having to report him to the Board of Professional Responsibility for his improper actions, believing it necessary even to file police reports on some of [Husband‘s] most egregious behavior, having to participate in an 8-hour deposition in a case that [Husband] then non-suited after causing her thousands in attorney fees, being hurt at her work by [Husband] intentionally serving her with process there, and costing her many thousands more in attorney fees for other harassment over the years, like negotiating agreements but then refusing to sign.
In response, Husband alleged Wife had not complied with the trial court‘s May 2019 order on his discovery requests and asked the trial court to order Wife to fully comply within fifteen days.
The trial judge held a hearing on Wife‘s motion in January 2020.6 In the order that followed the hearing, the trial judge apparently agreed with Wife‘s characterization of
Husband‘s post-divorce use of the legal system. The order said that Wife did not have to provide Husband any further information in response to his discovery requests, and added:
The Court found that based on the filings in this case by [Husband], the arguments he has made, the evidence he has presented, [Husband] has been a bully and he has bullied [Wife] for years,
which must end. Given that the case is not yet set for trial despite two separate Motions to Set being granted by this Court, the Court, sua sponte, found that the case should be set for trial in May 2020, and the parties should obtain a date from the Fourth Circuit staff immediately. The Court further found that it will not allow [Husband] to continue to bully [Wife].
The order set the case for trial, set a pre-trial settlement conference, and ordered Husband to be present for the settlement conference. After multiple continuances, the trial court entered an order setting a settlement conference for November 5, 2020, and the hearing thirteen days later.
The settlement conference failed. The next day, nearly two years after the petition was filed, Husband sent Wife a notice of nonsuit.
Before the order of nonsuit was entered, Wife filed a motion for damages or sanctions for an abusive lawsuit under
In response, Husband denied that his petition constituted an abusive civil action and noted that Wife‘s claim of an abusive lawsuit could not be considered because it was not filed prior to his notice of nonsuit. He claimed to be the “prevailing party” under his petition because he obtained some of the requested relief, namely termination of his obligations to pay transitional alimony and carry life insurance to ensure the alimony, within ninety days after he filed his petition.7 He said he decided to nonsuit his petition
because he stood “little or no chance” at the hearing after the trial court granted Wife‘s motion for a protective order relieving her of any further obligation to provide cell phone records.
In November 2020, the trial court entered an order of nonsuit, dismissing Husband‘s petition without prejudice. Then, in January 2021, the trial court entered an order denying Wife‘s pending abusive lawsuit claim, and also granting Wife‘s motion to alter or amend the order of dismissal to allow Wife to file a motion for attorney fees.
Wife followed up by filing a motion for attorney fees on two grounds. First, she sought fees under the MDA, which included a provision that the “prevailing party shall also be entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney‘s fees, incurred in connection” with defending a proceeding “related to the enforcement of any provision” of the MDA. Second, Wife sought fees under
Husband‘s response again claimed he was the prevailing party on the petition at issue. Husband also filed a cross-motion for attorney fees for prevailing on Wife‘s abusive lawsuit motion. See
As relevant to this appeal, the trial court granted Wife‘s motion for attorney fees. It awarded her $16,500 in “reasonable attorney fees and costs she incurred in being forced to defend this action for more than two years.”8 Husband appealed the award of attorney fees.
The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court‘s award of attorney fees to Wife. Colley v. Colley, No. M2021-00731-COA-R3-CV, 2022 WL 17009222, at *1 (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 17, 2022), perm. app. granted, (Tenn. Mar. 9, 2023). In so doing, it considered whether Wife was a prevailing party under the MDA or
We granted Wife‘s request for permission to appeal on the issue of whether she is a “prevailing party” entitled to attorney fees under the parties’ MDA and
ANALYSIS
On the question of attorney fees, Tennessee has historically followed the “American Rule.” Eberbach, 535 S.W.3d at 474 (citation omitted). Under this rule, parties to civil cases must generally pay their own attorney fees. Id. (citing Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. v. Epperson, 284 S.W.3d 303, 309 (Tenn. 2009)). Otherwise, a party in a civil action may recover attorney fees “only if: (1) a contractual or statutory provision creates a right to recover attorney‘s fees; or (2) some other recognized exception to the American Rule applies, allowing for recovery of such fees in a particular case.” Id. (quoting Cracker Barrel, 284 S.W.3d at 308). The party seeking payment of their attorney fees bears the burden of showing an exception to the American Rule. Id.
In this appeal, Wife contends that the Court of Appeals erred in reversing her award of attorney fees under both a contract, the parties’ MDA, and a statute,
In addition, both parties in this case seek an award of attorney fees on appeal.
In Eberbach, this Court observed that “[f]ee requests made pursuant to contractual and statutory authority must be analyzed separately, though they will often be requested together.” 535 S.W.3d at 477. We advised courts to consider fee requests under MDAs first because an MDA with a mandatory fee provision would be binding, while attorney fee awards under
Attorney Fees at Trial Level Under MDA
In June 2012, the parties reached agreement on the terms of their MDA. See
In the event it becomes reasonably necessary for either party to institute or defend legal proceedings related to the enforcement of any provision of this Agreement, the prevailing party shall also be entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney‘s fees, incurred in connection with such proceedings.
Because marital dissolution agreements are contracts, they are “subject to the rules governing construction of contracts.” Eberbach, 535 S.W.3d at 478 (citing Barnes v. Barnes, 193 S.W.3d 495, 498 (Tenn. 2006)). Under Tennessee law on contract interpretation, the “central principle . . . [is] to interpret contracts so as to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the contracting parties.” Individual Healthcare Specialists, Inc. v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Inc., 566 S.W.3d 671, 694 (Tenn. 2019) (citations omitted). Under “the strong strain of textualism in Tennessee caselaw,” we “keep the written words as the lodestar of contract interpretation.” Id. (citations omitted). Tennessee courts consider evidence of context where appropriate, but we “give primacy to the contract terms, because the words are the most reliable indicator—and the best evidence—of the parties’ agreement when relations were harmonious, and where the parties were not jockeying for advantage in a contract dispute.” Id. (quoting Feldman, 21 Tenn. Practice § 8:14). We interpret MDAs as they are written, “giving the language used a natural meaning.” Eberbach, 535 S.W.3d at 478 (citation omitted).
Here, Husband filed a petition to terminate the transitional alimony provided to Wife in the MDA. In connection with termination of the transitional alimony, his petition also sought to terminate the requirement that Husband have Wife as a beneficiary on his life insurance policy to secure the alimony. Once Husband filed his petition, “Wife was forced to defend” her award of transitional alimony under the MDA and the related life insurance obligation. See id. at 480.
Specifically, under the language in the attorney fee provision in the MDA, “it [became] reasonably necessary for [Wife] to . . . defend legal proceedings related to the enforcement of” the transitional alimony and life insurance obligations awarded to Wife in the MDA. Consequently, under this attorney fee provision, Wife is “entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney‘s fees, incurred in connection with such proceedings” if she is considered the “prevailing party,” in light of Husband‘s nonsuit. Wife argues that, when litigation Husband initiated “ends with a judgment that dismisses a plaintiff‘s claims and affords him no relief, it makes little sense to conclude that the defendant did not ‘prevail’ as the term is used in the MDA. Appellant‘s Brief at 25 (filed April 4, 2023), No. M2021-00731-SC-R11-CV. In response, Husband argues Wife cannot be considered the prevailing party in the context of his petition to end his alimony obligation because he nonsuited the petition, so the trial court never ruled on the merits.
We must agree with Wife. Husband‘s position finds no support in the text of the MDA. The filing of Husband‘s petition to reduce his alimony obligations under the MDA forced Wife to defend the MDA. In doing so, Wife‘s only goal was to preserve the status quo, through either a decision on the merits or dismissal of the petition. Husband‘s choice to nonsuit his petition meant that Wife, as the defending party, achieved that result.
Accordingly, under the attorney fee provision in the parties’ MDA, as the “prevailing party,” Wife is “entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney‘s fees, incurred in connection with” her defense of Husband‘s petition at the trial court level.
In Eberbach, we advised: “Fee requests made pursuant to contractual and statutory authority must be analyzed separately, though they will often be requested together.” 535 S.W.3d at 477. Here, however, the Court of Appeals conflated its analysis of whether Wife was the prevailing party, interpreting the MDA and the statute together, rather than separately. Colley, 2022 WL 17009222, at *5. Consequently, for clarity and to provide guidance in future cases, we exercise our discretion to consider separately whether Wife is a “prevailing party” under
Attorney Fees at Trial Level Under Statute
The statute at issue in this appeal expressly creates a right to seek attorney fees in certain family law proceedings.
On appeal, Wife offers a belt-and-suspenders argument. She contends that she became a “prevailing party” in the underlying divorce by virtue of the award of alimony to her in the parties’ MDA; Husband did not appeal the final divorce decree, which incorporated the MDA. She maintained her status of “prevailing party,” she contends, by successfully fending off Husband‘s 2019 petition, which sought to challenge her right to the alimony provided in the MDA. Thus, in both the original divorce and in the post-divorce litigation, Wife asserts that she remained the prevailing party regardless of whether Husband‘s petition was dismissed on its merits or by nonsuit.
In support, Wife relies on intermediate appellate court cases interpreting
In response, Husband argues that, to be considered a “prevailing party” under
In this case, the Court of Appeals cited prior intermediate appellate cases that applied Himmelfarb outside the context of malicious prosecution and concluded that because voluntary dismissal is not dismissal on the merits, neither party ends up as the “prevailing party.” Id. at *6 (first citing Jasinskis v. Cameron, No. M2019-01417-COA-R3-CV, 2020 WL 2765845, at *5 (Tenn. Ct. App. May 27, 2020); then citing Justice v. Craftique Constr., Inc., No. E2019-00884-COA-R3-CV, 2021 WL 142146, at *3 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 15, 2021)). Based on the reasoning in those cases, the Court of Appeals held that Husband‘s nonsuit left the parties “as if no action had been brought at all,” so neither Husband nor Wife was a “prevailing party” under
Resolving the issue presented in this appeal requires us to construe
As this Court has observed, while there is “no absolute right to” attorney fees under
In the context of alimony, our Court of Appeals has explained the purpose of
Alimony is only awarded in the first instance to an economically disadvantaged spouse who has a demonstrated need for the support. Absent a showing in a modification proceeding that the need no longer exists, requiring the recipient to expend that support for legal fees incurred in defending it would defeat the purpose and public policy underlying the statute on spousal support. Additionally, the possibility of being burdened with a former spouse‘s attorney‘s fees helps deter unwarranted or unjustified attempts by an obligor to evade or reduce an existing support obligation.
Stratienko v. Stratienko, No. E2022-01802-COA-R3-CV, 2023 WL 7326321, at *12 (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 7, 2023) (citations omitted). The prospect of an attorney fee award under
As noted by Wife, our intermediate appellate court has affirmed awards of attorney fees pursuant to
Nevertheless, as Husband points out and as Wife concedes, these cases were decided prior to the 2018 amendment of
Prior to the 2018 amendment,
The plaintiff spouse may recover from the defendant spouse, and the spouse or other person to whom the custody of the child, or children, is awarded may recover from the other spouse reasonable attorney fees incurred in enforcing any decree for alimony and/or child support, or in regard to any suit or action concerning the adjudication of the custody or the change of custody of any child, or children, of the parties, both upon the original divorce hearing and at any subsequent hearing, which fees may be fixed and allowed by the court, before whom such action or proceeding is pending, in the discretion of such court.
A prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney‘s fees, which may be fixed and allowed in the court‘s discretion, from the nonprevailing party in any criminal or civil contempt action or other proceeding to enforce, alter, change, or modify any decree of alimony, child support, or provision of a permanent parenting plan order, or in any suit or action concerning the adjudication of the custody or change of custody of any children, both upon the original divorce hearing and at any subsequent hearing.
All told, these revisions bespeak an intent to broaden
In Husband‘s brief, he takes the position that, in order to qualify for an award of attorney fees, “the case must have been heard and decided on the merits and facts of the case and the outcome must have materially altered the legal relationship of the parties.” Respectfully, this position is inconsistent with the text of the statute. It explicitly applies in
any criminal or civil contempt action or other proceeding to enforce, alter, change, or modify any decree of alimony, child support, or provision of a permanent parenting plan order, or in any suit or action concerning the adjudication of the custody or change of custody of any children, both upon the original divorce hearing and at any subsequent hearing.
Cases applying the prior version of the statute show the need for such a provision. It is not unusual in family law cases to see an obligor former spouse with significant monetary resources force a financially disadvantaged ex-spouse to incur attorney fees post-divorce to enforce or defend alimony, child support, or a parenting plan originally ordered by the trial court. See, e.g., Stratienko, 2023 WL 7326321, at *4 (describing efforts of ex-husband with “vastly” greater earning capacity to avoid paying spousal support to ex-wife); St. John-Parker, 638 S.W.3d at 631 (reciting testimony that attorney ex-husband said he was “going to litigate this until every last dime was gone, he wasn‘t going to pay [his ex-wife] a dime“); Barnes, 614 S.W.3d at 95–97 (detailing very substantial assets of husband who claimed he could no longer afford alimony to wife, a registered nurse). This fact pattern can also arise with parents who were never married to one another. See, e.g., In re E.J.M., 259 S.W.3d 124, 134 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2007) (recounting father‘s successive petitions and appeals to modify custody described as his “relentless approach to resolving this matter through litigation” bordering on “an abuse of the judicial process“).
The trial judge in this case apparently viewed Husband as having taken such a path. Here, the parties’ agreed MDA and parenting plan marked the beginning of years of post-divorce litigation in which Husband unsuccessfully litigated numerous issues, including a petition to modify the parties’ agreed arrangement that was nonsuited a year and a half after it was filed and after Wife had incurred significant attorney fees to defend the original arrangement. Husband then pursued an appeal to the Court of Appeals in which he represented himself and lost on appeal. Failing in those efforts, Husband then embarked on another series of post-divorce proceedings, culminating in the instant second appeal.
The petition that is the subject of this appeal was filed roughly two months before Wife‘s scheduled remarriage, when
The statute is clearly applicable here. We must reject Husband‘s contention that, in order to qualify for an award of attorney fees, the case must have been decided in a manner that “materially altered the legal relationship of the parties.” The text of the statute expressly provides for an award of attorney fees for a party defending against a petition to “alter, change, or modify” an award, where the defending party seeks no alteration in the legal relationship of the parties.
This tees up the question of whether Wife can be considered a “prevailing party” under
We need not and do not determine who was the “prevailing party” in the original divorce. The text of the statute provides: “A prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney‘s fees. . . from the nonprevailing party in any proceeding to enforce, alter, change, or modify any decree of alimony. . . .”
As we have observed, in the proceedings on Husband‘s petition to curtail the alimony, Wife sought no affirmative relief other than attorney fees and costs. She sought only to fend off Husband‘s attempt to end the alimony sooner than provided in the MDA. Husband argues Wife cannot be considered the “prevailing party” in the context of his petition to end his alimony obligation because the trial court never ruled on the merits of his petition.
Respectfully, Husband‘s position finds no support in the text of the statute. The text in
The State of Tennessee submitted a brief as amicus curiae, asking the Court to issue a broad ruling on interpretation of the phrase “prevailing party” in all Tennessee statutes.14 It argues that the term “prevailing party” is a “legal term of art” as used in all statutes, both federal and
As observed by Wife in response to the State‘s amicus brief, the State “has briefed a materially different question than the one presented here.” First, it is unclear why the State reaches for federal decisions applying federal civil rights statutes, such as Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 603 (2001).16 It‘s hard to imagine a setting further removed from ours here: a family law statute—a bread-and-butter area of the law that is the exclusive province of the states. See Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 404 (1975) (describing “domestic relations” as “a virtually exclusive province of the States“).17
Second, the great bulk of the federal authorities cited by the State involve attorney fee awards to plaintiffs.18 See, e.g., Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 601. This case involves an attorney fee request by a defendant. The federal authorities cited by the State take pains to point out that the considerations for plaintiffs and defendants seeking attorney fees are different:
Plaintiffs and defendants come to court with different objectives. A plaintiff seeks a material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties. A defendant seeks to prevent this alteration to the extent it is in the plaintiff‘s favor. The defendant, of course, might prefer a judgment vindicating its position regarding the substantive merits of the plaintiff‘s allegations. The defendant has, however, fulfilled its primary objective whenever the plaintiff‘s challenge is rebuffed, irrespective of the precise reason for the court‘s decision. . . .
CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. 419, 431 (2016)).
Third, the State‘s brief asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court in CRST held that, for defendants seeking attorney fees, the trial court must “reject the plaintiff‘s attempt to alter the parties legal relationship’ in a decision ‘marked by ‘judicial imprimatur,” that is, defendants must “secure[] a judicial decision that rejects the plaintiff‘s claims and provides enduring relief.” Respectfully, CRST held no such thing. After giving context by describing prior federal caselaw on plaintiffs, including the “judicial imprimatur” language, the Court in CSRT pointed out that it had not yet said “how courts should determine whether a defendant has prevailed.” CRST, 578 U.S. at 422. At the end of the day, CRST held only that any dismissal need not be on the merits; defendants are prevailing parties if “the litigation was resolved in their favor,” regardless of the reason. Id. at 434. It left open the question of whether a defendant can be the prevailing party if the dismissal is without prejudice. Id.19
In a recent decision involving attorney fee awards to plaintiffs, the U.S. Supreme Court re-emphasized that plaintiffs and defendants are considered under different standards, and it summed up its limited holding in CRST:
A different body of caselaw addresses when a defendant is a “prevailing party” for the purposes of other fee-shifting statutes. Our decision today should not be read to affect our previous holding that a defendant need not obtain a favorable judgment on the merits to prevail, nor to address the question we left open of whether a defendant must obtain a preclusive judgment in order
to prevail. See CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. 419, 431–434, 136 S.Ct. 1642, 194 L.Ed.2d 707 (2016). As we have explained, “[p]laintiffs and defendants come to court with different objectives.” Id. at 431, 136 S.Ct. 1642.
Lackey v. Stinnie, 145 S. Ct. 659, 669 (2025) (footnote not numbered).
But even if the U.S. Supreme Court were to interpret federal civil rights statutes for defendants in the fashion the State claims, it would not be persuasive here. Whatever “legal terms of art” may exist in federal civil rights jurisprudence, we interpret state family law statutes in the context of state family law jurisprudence. Under that jurisprudence, our intermediate appellate court has historically applied
Now surely it is beyond argument that, policy considerations aside, when a plaintiff decides to abandon his lawsuit, the defendant, thereby relieved of the further worry and expense of defending himself, thinks he won. Common experience teaches that the challenger who forfeits, loses, and his opponent wins. Imagine the conversation between the Eppses and their lawyer: “Good news! The Fowlers dropped their suit.” “Wow! So we won!” “No, you didn‘t win. The Fowlers just gave up.” “But we said all along the case had no merit, and now they‘ve effectively conceded it. We didn‘t win?” “Well, you have to understand that a federal case construing the Civil Rights Act has held that. . . .”
Id. at 873 (Hecht, J. dissenting). We agree. Under
We next consider Husband‘s contention that this case is controlled by Himmelfarb v. Allain, 380 S.W.3d 35 (Tenn. 2012). It is not.
Himmelfarb involved the common law tort of malicious prosecution. See id. at 36. To prove malicious prosecution, a claimant must show, among other things, that the prior suit or proceeding against the plaintiff was terminated in the plaintiff‘s favor. Id. at 38. This element of the tort requires termination on the merits, and because a voluntary nonsuit is not on the merits, Himmelfarb held that a nonsuit is not a “favorable termination” in a malicious prosecution action. Id. at 40–41.
In contrast, this appeal requires us to construe “prevailing party” language in a statute,
Husband argues that if we hold that a respondent may be a “prevailing party” under
Not so. Awards of attorney fees under
As noted above, under the previous iteration of
We hold that Wife may be considered a “prevailing party” under
Accordingly, under both the MDA and
Attorney Fees on Appeal
Parties to post-divorce proceedings may seek to recover appellate attorney fees under the attorney fee provision in their MDA, or on statutory grounds such as
We discussed appellate attorney fees in Eberbach:
In cases in which parties seek an award of attorney‘s fees under statutory authority alone, the statute governs the award of fees. In such cases, the statute is . . . the basis for the court‘s authority to grant fees on appeal. Thus, when appellate attorney‘s fees are requested pursuant to statutes like . . . section 36-5-103(c), which expressly permit the court to exercise its discretion, the [appellate court] should analyze any such request by exercising its discretion to determine whether an award to the prevailing party is appropriate.
The same is not true when the parties to post-divorce litigation have a marital dissolution agreement that contains a mandatory fee award provision. Our courts long have observed at the trial court level that parties are contractually entitled to recover their reasonable attorney‘s fees when they have an agreement that provides the prevailing party in a litigation is entitled to such fees.
535 S.W.3d at 477–78. Appellate courts have “no discretion whether to award attorney‘s fees when the parties have a valid and enforceable marital dissolution agreement
Consequently, we consider both parties’ requests under the MDA first. As noted above, the MDA provides that, if it “becomes reasonably necessary” for either party to “defend legal proceedings related to the enforcement of any provision” in the MDA, “the prevailing party shall also be entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney‘s fees, incurred in connection with such proceedings.” Here, it was “reasonably necessary” for Wife to defend against Husband‘s appeal to the Court of Appeals, and “reasonably necessary” for Wife to appeal the Court of Appeals’ ruling against her to this Court. Inclusion of the phrase “shall . . . be entitled” in the parties’ MDA indicates that an award of reasonable attorney fees for the prevailing party is mandatory, so we are obliged to award appellate attorney fees to the prevailing party in this appeal. Id. at 478–80 (reversing the Court of Appeals for failing to award attorney fees and costs to the party that prevailed on appeal, pursuant to the marital dissolution agreement). In this appeal, we reversed the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Husband‘s favor and affirmed the ruling of the trial court in Wife‘s favor. On appeal, Wife is clearly the prevailing party under the MDA, and Husband is not.
As we did above in discussing attorney fees at the trial court level, for clarity and to provide guidance in future cases, we exercise our discretion to consider separately whether Wife is entitled to attorney fees on appeal under
As noted in Eberbach, while fees under the MDA are mandatory, fees under
As our Court of Appeals has observed, requiring the recipient of alimony to expend the monies received for legal fees incurred in order to defend the original award “would defeat the purpose and public policy underlying the statute on spousal support.” Stratienko, 2023 WL 7326321, at *12 (citation omitted). Moreover, the possibility of being required to pay a former spouse‘s attorney fees “helps deter unwarranted or unjustified attempts by an obligor to evade or reduce an existing support obligation.” Id.
We reiterate that Husband‘s petition was an effort to keep from paying only two months of transitional alimony and the associated life insurance premiums,
Accordingly, pursuant to the parties’ MDA and
We remand the case to the trial court for a determination of the amount of Wife‘s reasonable attorney fees for the appeal to the Court of Appeals and to this Court.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the judgment of the Circuit Court is reinstated. The case is remanded to the Circuit Court to determine the amount of reasonable attorney fees Wife incurred on appeal to the Court of Appeals and to this Court. Costs on appeal are taxed to the appellee, John S. Colley, III, for which execution may issue if necessary.
s/Holly Kirby, Chief Justice
HOLLY KIRBY, CHIEF JUSTICE