Pegan v. Crawmer

Pegan asserts in her sole proposition of law that attorney fees are not available as costs absent statutory authority or frivolous conduct on the part of the nonprevailing party. For the reasons that follow, we sustain Pegan’s proposition and reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.

First, in the absence of statutory authorization or a finding of conduct that amounts to bad faith, a prevailing party may not recover attorney fees. State ex rel. Pennington v. Gundler (1996), 75 Ohio St.3d 171, 173, 661 N.E.2d 1049, 1051; Vance v. Roedersheimer (1992), 64 Ohio St.3d 552, 556, 597 N.E.2d 153,…