In a child support proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act
Ordered that the order dated January 6, 2005 is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, without costs or disbursements, the order of the Family Court, Queens County, dated May 9, 2006, is vacated, and the matter is remitted to the Family Court, Queens County, before a different judge, for a new determination in accordance herewith of that branch of the petitioner’s application which was for an award of an attorney’s fee incurred in prosecuting her fee application pursuant to Family Court Act § 438; and it is further,
Ordered that the appeal from the order dated July 8, 2005 is dismissed as academic, without costs or disbursements, in light of the determination of the Family Court, Queens County, in an order dated February 10, 2006.
Although awards for legal services provided in connection with a fee application should not be routinely expected or freely granted, such awards are committed to the sound discretion of the Family Court “to be exercised in appropriate cases, to further the objectives of litigational parity, and to prevent the more affluent spouse from wearing down or financially punishing the opposition by recalcitrance, or by prolonging the litigation” (O’Shea v O’Shea, 93 NY2d 187, 193 [1999]). To the extent that Matter of Getman v Getman (156 AD2d 686, 687 [1989]) may be read to deprive the court of this discretion, it has, in effect, been overruled in this regard by O’Shea v O’Shea (supra), and should no longer be followed for that proposition. Accordingly, inasmuch as the Family Court declined to reach the merits of the request for an award for an attorney’s fee on the mistaken ground that it was without authority to award an attorney’s fee incurred by the petitioner in prosecuting her fee application, we remit the matter to the Family Court, Queens County, for a new determination with respect to that narrow issue.
We note that, well after this appeal had been perfected, the Family Court, sua sponte, issued an order, dated May 9, 2006, which, inter alia, purported to vacate its order dated January 6,