When will a court award attorney fees and costs in a personal injury action?

Thus, the trial court has discretion to award attorney fees and costs. We will not disturb the trial court's decision absent an abuse of that discretion. (See Adoption of D.S.C. (1979) 93 Cal.App.3d 14, 24-25, 155 Cal.Rptr. 406.) The trial court's discretion, however, is not absolute: "The discretion intended, however, is not a capricious or arbitrary discretion, but an impartial discretion, guided and controlled in its exercise by fixed legal principles. It is not a mental discretion, to be exercised ex gratia, but a legal discretion, to be exercised in conformity with the spirit of the law and in a manner to subserve and not to impede or defeat the ends of substantial justice." (Bailey v. Taaffe (1866) 29 Cal. 422, 424.) An exercise of discretion is subject to reversal on appeal where

[111 Cal.Rptr.2d 639]