Oregon Court of Appeals Confirms Holding on Attorney Block Billing

The Oregon Court of Appeals has issued a clarification of its prior decision in the long running ZRZ Realty (“Moody Avenue”) environmental coverage litigation concerning attorney fees.  See link below.  The procedural aspects are of little concern other than to the litigants but it is worth noting that the court confirmed the prior decisions holding that block billing of attorney time did not necessarily render the fees unreasonable or unrecoverable. This holding has been helpful to policyholders trying to recover past defense costs from carriers that deny a defense and force the insured to litigate, something that is all too common because Oregon lacks bad faith legislation, a situation that the pending HB 3160 would help to rectify.   And as the Zidell folks pointed out in supporting that bill, if a bad faith claim had been available to them in the first place this whole multi year litigation might never have been necessary!