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of attorney’s fees. Under the circumstances, the Supreme Court
of Oklahoma held that the trial court had jurisdiction to enter
an order awarding attorney’s fees to the legal representative of
the deceased wife. For a similar holding, see Swick v. Swick,
864 P.2d 819 (Okla. 1993) (where a spouse in a divorce proceeding
died after the entry of a final divorce decree, but before the
court decided the deceased spouse’s motion for attorney’s fees,
the deceased spouse’s attorney had standing to move for the
payment of his client’s attorney’s fees).
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma has recognized that an
attorney’s standing to seek the payment of attorney’s fees in a
divorce action is not always contingent on the trial court’s
continuing jurisdiction over the divorce proceeding. In Kelly v.
Maupin, 58 P.2d 116 (Okla. 1936), a case somewhat analogous to
the instant case, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma held that, where
a trial court had entered a temporary order awarding attorney’s
fees to a wife in a divorce proceeding, the wife’s attorney had
the right to enforce that order through contempt proceedings
brought against the husband, even though the wife had filed a
dismissal with respect to her divorce petition in the interim.
The court held in pertinent part:
We do not think it is essential to a determination of
this case to decide definitely whether this order was
effective as a dismissal of the divorce action.
Regardless of its effect in that particular, it was, in
our judgment, obviously ineffective to destroy the
previous order made by the court, in so far as that
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