Several years ago I did some side work with two companies. Let’s call them Company A and Company B. A year into the business, Company A suddenly went bankrupt. The timing was pretty evil as they had just received a massive payment from Company B to pay for products they had just ordered. I did my best to try and help out Company B by negotiating some credit terms with the suppliers but after a 50% payment was made, suddenly Company B refused to pay the remaining balance. Company B was now claiming they didn’t approve of the last order that Company A had signed off on. Of course the supplier stopped shipping everything, including other partially shipped orders. (these were custom products so cancellations were not possible)
Company B then started accusing me of “embezzling” their previous payments, went to the police and were turned away…then filed a lawsuit against me for the payments and for a bunch of other damages that Company A had caused. I supposed with Company A bankrupt, it was some sort of hail mary attempt to assign blame to me or to scare me into accepting some fault for what they lost to Company A.
Anyhow, after 3 years of back and forth and 2 judges at court, I finally got a judgment in my favor, dismissing all claims against me. What a relief! The judgement also awarded all my legal fees and such be paid by Company B. Nice! From what I could find online, it seems unusual and likely done in an attempt to discourage Company B from appealing or attempting further action.
So my question is has anyone here ever been awarded legal fees paid by the other party? What exactly can I realistically claim as far as legal fees and such? Transportation, days off work, etc.?
3 comments
In case it could help someone else who is sued or is thinking of suing someone in Japan, I’ll mention the civil court/judges were really accommodating for a foreigner with no legal experience in Japan. The original claim was quite small so the attorney I consulted with said it wouldn’t be worth it for him or me to do anything more than consult. I represented myself. Then the claim jumped up to a serious amount but I continued without counsel. (was obvious Company B had an attorney drafting up everything but they were not represented by one in court) This went all the way to trial (also rare) and yeah, you can imagine I’m happy with the results.
I know you represented yourself in the case, but now that you have legal fees as part of the judgement … why not hire a lawyer to help you calculate the legal fees?
I mean this seems like a reasonable cost directly associated with the judgement. Many lawyers in Japan will offer a free (or very cheap) initial consultation, and you can straight-up ask them, “I have been awarded a judgement with legal fees. Would hiring a lawyer to assist me in calculating what legal fees I can reasonably claim be covered under said legal fees?”
… and if it is then go to town. I’m sure that the lawyer will be more than happy to bill **plenty** of hours on this extremely tricky legal question, such as determining a reasonable valuable for the time you used, your transportation, days off work, lost income, and anything else they can dream up…. plus of course their own fees. You might even be able to add an accountant to the team to justify the calculations.
Of course also ask the lawyer if these fees can be challenged, and whether the normal Japanese “negotiation” approach will apply. Tailor the final fees so that you and your lawyer both end up with an amount that is both agreeable to you and the lawyer, and discourages the company from appealing the judgement.
As a final thought, having the legal fees come via a lawyer may be additional incentive for the company in question to back down on any further legal action. They might think that you “lucked out” on the judgement representing yourself, but if they see you’ve now retained a lawyer (at their expense) then they might go, “Uh oh, next time isn’t going to be so cheap, and if the appeal court upholds the judgement we’ll be on the hook for even more! And we’re even less likely to win now that they have an actual lawyer.”
Great question. Congratulations on winning.
I truly believe that 10+ years from now this will be a top Google result when some other people are trying to figure out the answer to this question.