Jackson v. Superior Court

RICHARDS, J.

In these two proceedings the petitioner has sought to have reviewed a portion of a certain order made and entered by the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles, sitting as a probate court, wherein and in the Matter of the Estate of Wein, pending therein, it undertook to order the petitioner herein to return to the executors of said estate the sum of $450, which the petitioner had theretofore received as a portion of an attorney’s fee paid to him by said executors in the course of their administration of said estate. The petitioner having failed and refused to comply with said order the court, upon a showing made to that effect by said executors, issued an order requiring the petitioner to show cause why he should not be adjudged guilty of contempt for his failure and refusal to comply with said order. Upon a hearing upon this latter order the court adjudged the petitioner guilty of contempt and ordered that he be committed to the sheriff of the county of Los Angeles, state of California, to be by him confined and retained in the county jail of said county until he should have paid to the executors of the

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last will and testament of John H. Wein, deceased, the sum of $450 referred to in the former order of the court. The petitioner herein applied for a writ of review upon the making of the first order above referred to and also applied for a writ of review upon the making of the latter order adjudging him guilty of contempt. These two petitions came on for hearing together and, since they each involve the same facts and the same questions of law, are to be considered together.

The facts which, in all essential respects, are undisputed may be briefly stated as follows: On and prior to the twenty-second day of April, 1929, there was pending in the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles a certain probate proceeding entitled: “In the Matter of the Estate of John H. Wein, deceased.” During the course of administration of said estate Julius H. Wein, one of the executors therein, employed B. M. Jackson, the petitioner herein, to perform certain services in the interest of said estate, which chiefly consisted in his making certain trips to Butte, Montana, and Portland, Oregon, with a view to averting certain threatened contests; and also consisted in the rendition of certain other legal services such as an executor would require in the course of administration of an estate. On account of his expenses incurred during said trips the petitioner was paid by the executor the sum of $850, and was further paid the sum of $1200 on account of the. legal services rendered by him to such executor. Discord having arisen between the executor and his counsel, the petitioner herein, the former, with his coexeeutor, filed in said court an application for an order substituting “Cyril M. Goldstein in the place of B. M. Jackson, as attorney for Julius H. Wein, one of said executors, and to have determined the total compensation of said B. M. Jackson for services in the matter of said estate, and to have the court make an order requiring B. M. Jackson to return and pay to said executors any excess in moneys received by him over and above the fees and expenses to which he is entitled.” The court made its order in conformity with said application, and upon the return day thereof heard and considered the matters presented by the respective parties in the form of oral and documentary evidence, and thereafter made its finding thereon to the effect “that the said B. M. Jackson