Leeper v. Ginsberg

THE COURT. The plaintiff has appealed from a judgment which was rendered against him in a suit to recover the reasonable value of attorney’s fees for services rendered. The cause was tried by the court sitting without a jury.

The complaint alleges that while plaintiff and Charles 0. Busick were engaged in the practice of law as copartners the defendants employed them on May 1, 1927, to recover from Alpha Quicksilver Mining Company an indebtedness amounting to $172,800 and accrued interest; that pursuant to that employment the law partnership performed services until its dissolution in March, 1931, at which time the claim for legal services against the defendants was transferred to plaintiff who “thenceforth and up to the present time, with the consent and at the request of the defendants, proceeded with the carrying out of the said contract”, and thereafter continued to perform legal services, of the reasonable value of $5,000, no part of which has been paid except the sum of $300. The prayer asks for judgment against the defendants for the sum of $4,700. The answer denies the material allegations of the complaint and sets up the statute of limitations as a bar to the claim.

The court found that among other legal services performed by the partnership, and by the plaintiff before the dissolution of the partnership, was the foreclosure of a trust deed for $27,000 executed by the Alpha Quicksilver Mining Company; that the defendants Ginsberg, Nielson and Rablin constituted a committee representing the creditors of the mining company, and that the defendant Smith was their agent with [724]authority to employ counsel and act in behalf of the creditors ’ committee; that the law partnership was employed May 1, 1927, to foreclose the $27,000 trust deed, together with certain other incidental services, for an agreed fee of $300, which was fully paid; that the law partnership was dissolved in March, 1931, but that,

‘ ‘ Since the dissolution of said partnership, the plaintiff has rendered other services to the defendant Theodore Smith, but that said services were and are independent of said contract of employment with said partnership, and constitute independent contracts of employment with plaintiff.”

The court then found that the cause of action upon which the complaint is based, is barred by the statute of limitations. Judgment was then rendered to the effect that the plaintiff take nothing by this suit. From that judgment this appeal was perfected.