Attorney's Fees

On Thursday of last week, the Mississippi Supreme Court decided Union Carbide Corporation v. Nix.  A copy of the opinion is located here.   This was a large scale personal injury claim.  The Mississippi Supreme Court ended up affirming the award of compensatory damages but reversed for a new trial on punitive damages and reversed the award of attorney's fees which was tied to the punitive damages award.  In Paragraph 50 of the opinion, the Court specifically stated though that on an award of attorney's fees, finding had to be made on the record to support it.  This to me is clarification regarding a whole string of cases that required no findings on the record.  As such, I believe the trial court has to do a little more now than rubber stamp a party's request on fees.