Senate Bill 131 - Attorney's Fees in Civil Actions

• Requires courts to award reasonable and necessary attorney's fees to the prevailing party in civil actions commenced after June 30, 2013, when a nonprevailing party brought a frivolous, unreasonable, vexatious, or groundless claim or defense.

• Expands attorney's fees awards to cover cases where a nonprevailing party continued litigating after their claim clearly became frivolous, unreasonable, vexatious, or groundless, or litigated in bad faith.

• Exempts governmental entities and their employees acting in official capacity from liability for attorney's fees awards under the bill's provisions.

• Limits attorney's fees awards to only those nonprevailing parties who engaged in the frivolous conduct, and restricts fees to only issues on which the party did not prevail when a party succeeded on some claims.

• Effective July 1, 2013; preserves existing attorney's fees provisions in specific statutes for actions commenced before that date.