Argo Const. Co. v. Rich’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is .well settled that attorney fees are recoverable only where authorized by statute; when provided in a contract; or in certain equitable proceedings when the interests .of justice so require, as in the case when the opposing party has, acted in bad faith. See Reynolds v. First Alabanza Bank of Montgomery, N.A., 471 So.2d 1238 (Ala.1985), for an in-depth discussion of the exception to the ‘American rule’ of awarding attorney fees. In.the instant case,, as the trial court held and as the Court of Civil Appeals held, there is no provision-in the Act that allows an award of attorney fees under the circumstances before us, nor is there a contract that provides for such fees. Therefore, if we were to , allow such an award, we would have to do. so by invoking the equitable jurisdiction of the court so as to effectuate the • beneficent purpose of the Act, which ■ should be liberally construed in favor, of the employee. In the exercise of our equitable powers, we would look to the acts of .the employer to determine whether the employer was justified in refusing the payment of the requested medical and surgical expenses or whether its refusal to pay was done in bad faith — i.e., whether the employer willfully and contumaciously refused to provide the expenses for the medical care necessarily and directly related to the on-the-job injury. If the actions of the employer evinced bad faith, then we would be inclined to exercise our equitable powers and, thus, utilizing our policy-mak”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Good Hope Contracting Co. v. McCall