Can a judgment creditor recover attorney fees in an enforcement action?

^8. Chelios v. Kaye, supra, 219 Cal.App.3d 75, held that section 685.040 did not authorize a judgment creditor to recover attorney fees in enforcing the judgment where the right to fees was based on a contractual fee provision. The court reasoned that although the judgment subject to enforcement "was premised on an underlying contract which included a" fees clause that entitled the plaintiffs to collect prejudgment attorney fees incurred to enforce the contract (Chelios, supra, at p. 79), the contractual fee provision had "no remaining vitality" in the postjudgment enforcement proceedings (id. at p. 80). The court explained that once "a lawsuit on a contractual claim has been reduced to a final, nonappealable judgment, all of the prior contractual rights are merged into and extinguished by the monetary judgment, and thereafter the prevailing party has only those rights as are set forth in the judgment itself." (Ibid.) With no surviving contract to attach statutory authorization for fees, the court concluded that section 685.040 precluded the plaintiffs from collecting their postjudgment attorney fees in the enforcement action. (Chelios, supra, at pp. 80-81.)