Nason v. Granz

LILLIE, J. For services rendered as an appraiser, plaintiff alleged that defendant Granz, individually and in his representative capacity, was indebted to him in the sum of $15,000. The indebtedness was pleaded by use of the common counts. The court found in plaintiff’s favor as to count one of the complaint (alleging an open-book account) and against Granz as administrator of his mother’s estate.1

Necessary to our disposition of the issues on appeal is the following summary of background facts: Prior to her death in February of 1957, Mrs. Granz had commenced a partition suit against Minnie Joughin and other cotenants which involved property located in the Torrance area of Los Angeles County. A special administrator served until July of 1957 when defendant Granz qualified as general administrator. In October of 1957 he sought and secured an order in probate authorizing him to continue the prosecution of the above partition action and, in that connection, to incur all reasonable expenses including attorneys’ fees (in an amount to be thereafter fixed by the court) and any other expenses necessary to the proper prosecution of the action.

In April of 1957, prior to his appointment as administrator, it appears that Granz had contacted plaintiff with the view of engaging the latter’s services as an appraiser in the partition suit then pending. It was orally agreed that such services would be performed at the rate of $150 per day. Thereafter plaintiff entered upon his duties as an appraiser, was an expert witness at the trial of the partition suit and [763]was employed by the court to assist in repartitioning one of the partitioned parcels and in the preparation of the interlocutory decree. In September of 1958 plaintiff presented to the administrator’s attorneys a statement for services rendered which amounted to $18,000. He previously had received from the administrator two checks in the sum of $500 each, one of which was apparently for costs. In July of 1959 he received an additional $2,500 from the administrator.

The court made the following findings; That in April of 1957 plaintiff and defendant Granz, as administrator, entered into an oral agreement for the rendition of professional services, and that defendant agreed to pay reasonable value for said services at the completion thereof; that the agreement was one which could have been performed within one year; that plaintiff rendered services to defendant Granz, as administrator, totaling 98 days and extending over a period beginning in April of 1957 and ending in October of 1958; that the reasonable value of such services was $150 per day; that $3,000 had been paid to plaintiff by said defendant; that plaintiff kept an open book account of services rendered and payments received pursuant to the subject agreement in his regular course of business; that plaintiff did not agree to look only to the Estate of Isabella Granz for payment pursuant to the agreement in question. Appropriate conclusions of the law were drawn therefrom. The judgment, as noted earlier, was against defendant Granz, as administrator; it provided that he was indebted to plaintiff in the sum of $11,700. There was the further provision, as mentioned in footnote 1, supra, that plaintiff had not agreed to look only to the estate for payment for his services.