Johnson v. Riddle Ellis
Johnson v. Riddle Ellis
Opinion of the Court
Appellees filed an intervention, seeking to enforce an alleged lien upon a fund in the registry of the court for services rendered by them in an action of ejectment. As will appear more specifically later on we have not before us all the evidence upon which the circuit judge, sitting in equity, proceeded to a decree. We assume, therefore, in agreement with what must have been the finding in the trial court, that there was no express contract in reference to a fee for prosecuting the ejectment, and that a prior contract between the parties for legal services in and about the foreclosure of a mortgage on the land sued for in the ejectment — that being the remedy first resorted to — did not provide for the contingency of an action in ejectment. After a foreclosure sale under the power in the so-called mortgage, at which appellant’s intestate became the purchaser, appellees brought the action of ejectment; but it was evident that the mortgage, so called, conferred no title, and that there could be no recovery of the land. Thereupon the attorneys entered into a tentative agreement of compromise by the terms of which, according to .appellees’ version as shown in the evidence, defendant McElroy was to pay appellant the sum of $515 — about half of the debt which the mortgage purported to secure — and the suit was to be dismissed, each party assuming to pay one-half of the costs. And it appears that an order to that effect was made. But appellant’s intestate repudiated the agreement, and employed other counsel to sue for relief as he might be advised. Counsel thus employed thereupon filed a bill in equity to foreclose the mortgage, or, in the alternative, to have a lien declared in favor of this appellant. Then complainant in that cause, appellant’s intestate, died, and appellant took his place. That cause was then settled by compromise, and McElroy paid into court tlie sum of $725 in satisfaction of appellant’s demand, after which appellees intervened by petition, seeking to enforce an alleged lien against the fund for the amount of the value of the services rendered by them in bringing tbe action of ejectment, averring that, in prosecuting that action, plaintiff’s reliance was upon the title conferred by the mortgage and foreclosure; that appellant’s intestate had authorized the compromise of the mort *409 gage debt — for the sum of $550, the petition alleged — and the settlement and dismissal of the ejectment suit; and relief was decreed in accordance with the prayer " of the petition of intervention.
In the petition of intervention there was no averment that the action of appellant's intestate in repudiating the agreement for $515 in compromise of the ejectment suit and in retaining another attorney to file the bill in equity was' the result of a fraudulent scheme to maneuver appellees out of their alleged lien. And, notwithstanding the incompleteness of the ■ record, we might say with much assurance that there was no proof of any such fraudulent purpose. Letters written to intestate by that member of the appellee firm who managed the business with intestate and negotiated the tentative agreement of compromise — said letters being noted in the note of testimony and appearing in the record without denial — show .that intestate had been informed by appellees that his suit would be settled for the sum of $550, as alleged in the petition of intervention, whereas the settlement which intestate repudiated was for $515. Moreover, as noted above, the mortgage under which intestate claimed was wholly void, confessedly, and the attorney of latest importation into the case proceeded upon a theory wholly different from that on which appellees had. filed their action of ejectment, and the bill filed by the latest attorney produced by way of compromise a sum considerably in excess of the amount for which appellees had stipulated in their tentative agreement.
The decree declaring a lien in favor of appellees was error. A decree will be here rendered, dismissing the petition of intervention.
Reversed and rendered.
— .For other eases see same topic'and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numhered Digests and Indexes
Ante, p. 326.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- JOHNSON v. RIDDLE & ELLIS Et Al.
- Cited By
- 12 cases
- Status
- Published