Unresolved Motion For Attorney’s Fees Does Not Postpone Time For Appeal On The Merits, Regardless Of Source Of Fee Entitlement

Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co ., 486 U.S. 196 (1988), established that a district court's decision resolving the merits of a case is final for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and must be appealed within 30 days, even if an unresolved motion for attorney's fees is pending in the district court. In Budinich, the source of the attorney's fee entitlement was a state statute. Since the case was decided, the circuits have split on whether a different rule should govern a claim for attorney's fees based on a contract, on the theory that those fees are an item of damages, bound up in the merits, so that the merits decision of the district court is not final until the fee issue is resolved. The Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits held that Budinich governs contractual fee claims, while the First, Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits held that it did not.

On January 15, the Supreme Court resolved the split, unanimously ruling in Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v. Central Pension Fund, No. 12-992,that the presence of an unresolved attorney's fee motion never deprives the district court's merits decision of finality, so that the time to appeal runs...