Browse Arkansas Code titles and sections
16-22-309. Attorney's fees in actions lacking justiciable issue.
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
16-22-309. Attorney's fees in actions lacking justiciable issue.
(a)(1) In any civil action in which the court having jurisdiction finds that there was a complete absence of a justiciable issue of either law or fact raised by the losing party or his attorney, the court shall award an attorney's fee in an amount not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000), or ten percent (10%) of the amount in controversy, whichever is less, to the prevailing party unless a voluntary dismissal is filed or the pleadings are amended as to any nonjusticiable issue within a reasonable time after the attorney or party filing the dismissal or the amended pleadings knew, or reasonably should have known, that he would not prevail.
(2) This section shall not apply to actions arising out of a written instrument or agreement which entitles the prevailing party to an award of reasonable attorney's fees.
(b) In order to find an action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense to be lacking a justiciable issue of law or fact, the court must find that the action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense was commenced, used, or continued in bad faith solely for purposes of harassing or maliciously injuring another or delaying adjudication without just cause or that the party or the party's attorney knew, or should have known, that the action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense was without any reasonable basis in law or equity and could not be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.
(c) In awarding attorney's fees, the court may pronounce its decision on the fees at the conclusion of the trial or special proceedings without written motion and with or without presentation of additional evidence. The judgment for attorney's fees, if any, s
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 16-22-309
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. A text match is a research starting point; applicability is not established.
Issuing source page ↗
Authority boundary: historical statutory source snapshot not current law.
Open the recorded source website ↗
Record provenance
Stable record: arkansas_code:legal_authorities:16-22-309
Source file: gov.ar.code.title.16.odt
Pages: Not recorded – Not recorded
Passage SHA-256: 256fa0e6e0fee3d435358289ceec7d813c0c37d9027d8758580ecaec025e5e69
Source location: content.xml paragraph 14977
Stored source content
16-22-309. Attorney's fees in actions lacking justiciable issue.
(a)(1) In any civil action in which the court having jurisdiction finds that there was a complete absence of a justiciable issue of either law or fact raised by the losing party or his attorney, the court shall award an attorney's fee in an amount not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000), or ten percent (10%) of the amount in controversy, whichever is less, to the prevailing party unless a voluntary dismissal is filed or the pleadings are amended as to any nonjusticiable issue within a reasonable time after the attorney or party filing the dismissal or the amended pleadings knew, or reasonably should have known, that he would not prevail.
(2) This section shall not apply to actions arising out of a written instrument or agreement which entitles the prevailing party to an award of reasonable attorney's fees.
(b) In order to find an action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense to be lacking a justiciable issue of law or fact, the court must find that the action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense was commenced, used, or continued in bad faith solely for purposes of harassing or maliciously injuring another or delaying adjudication without just cause or that the party or the party's attorney knew, or should have known, that the action, claim, setoff, counterclaim, or defense was without any reasonable basis in law or equity and could not be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.
(c) In awarding attorney's fees, the court may pronounce its decision on the fees at the conclusion of the trial or special proceedings without written motion and with or without presentation of additional evidence. The judgment for attorney's fees, if any, shall be included in the final judgment entered in the action.
(d) On appeal, the question as to whether there was a complete absence of a justiciable issue shall be determined de novo on the record of the trial court alone.
Cross-references
Connections may be documented source relationships, shared citations or nearby passages. Each explains its basis; a connection alone does not establish applicability to your situation.
No explicit source connection was found. This does not mean there are no relevant authorities.