DAMAGES - EXPENSES OF LITIGATION - COUNSEL FEES IN A PREVIOUS SUIT

Plaintiffs brought this appeal from a judgment dismissing an action to recover the attorney\u27s fees and other expenses of the prosecution of a prior suit with defendant. In the former action plaintiffs had secured a decree requiring defendant to convey to them certain property which the defendant had withheld fraudulently and maliciously. In the present action defendant successfully had moved to dismiss on the grounds that attorney\u27s fees as between original litigants were not recoverable and further that this claim was res judicata due to the prior suit. Held, one justice dissenting as defendant\u27s intentional and wilful misconduct necessitated the previous litigation, and as the present claim for damages was not there asserted, the judgment must be reversed. Ritter v. Ritter, 308 Ill. App. 337, 32 N. E. (2d) 185 (1941)