Olszewski v. Jordan
Olszewski v. Jordan
Opinion of the Court
Opinion
The important question raised by this appeal is whether an attorney charging lien can arise by operation of law to be applied to assets or an interest in assets assigned to a party in a dissolution of marriage action. The trial court answered that question in the negative. We disagree and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the trial court.
In August, 2009, the court rendered a judgment dissolving the marriage of James F. Jordan III and Diana M. Jordan. James Jordan had been represented by the defendant Carlo Forzani, an attorney of the defendant law firm, Carlo Forzani, LLC, in that proceeding.
While an appeal to this court from the judgment of dissolution was pending,
The court held a hearing to determine the competing claims in the account and, subsequently, concluded that
On appeal, the defendants claim that the trial court improperly held that “an attorney’s charging hen is [not] applicable to a marriage dissolution action.” The defendants argue that Forzani “acquired a perfected charging hen for the full amount of his fees . . . when he successfully obtained a judgment for his chent that included a property distribution award.”
Whether an attorney has a common-law charging hen is a question of law. See D’Urso v. Lyons, 97 Conn. App. 253, 255, 903 A.2d 697, cert. denied, 280 Conn. 928, 909 A.2d 523 (2006). “When . . . the trial court draws conclusions of law, our review is plenary and we must decide whether its conclusions are legally and logically correct and find support in the facts that appear in the record.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 255-56.
“Although not often htigated in the courts of Connecticut, the common-law charging lien has been recognized since 1836 . . . .’’Id., 256. Our common-law charging hen is an equitable hen. “If an attorney has rendered
“ ‘An attorney, as against his chent, has a hen upon ah papers in his possession, for his fees and services performed in his professional capacity, as well as upon judgments received by him.’ This quoted passage obviously refers to both retaining hens on papers and charging hens on judgments.” Marsh, Day & Calhoun v. Solomon, 204 Conn. 639, 644, 529 A.2d 702 (1987). “An attorney’s retaining hen is a possessory hen on a chent’s papers and files that the attorney holds until his fee has been paid. ... A retaining hen differs from a charging hen, which is a hen placed upon any money recovery or fund due the chent at the conclusion of suit.” (Citations omitted.) Id., 643. “[I]t has long been held that an attorney has an equitable hen upon the avails [of his actions for a chent] for the services and expenses in the suit.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) D’Urso v. Lyons, supra, 97 Conn. App. 257.
Although a charging hen has not been recorded or otherwise been made known to third parties, in some circumstances, such charging hen can have priority over a prejudgment remedy or property execution. “Conflicts between an attorney claiming a charging hen for his fees on a judgment recovered through his efforts and a third-party creditor seeking to satisfy a debt owed by the attorney’s chent by impressing a hen on the same judgment have usually been resolved by determining which hen first attached to the judgment or its proceeds.
In the present case, although recognizing that an attorney in Connecticut may have a right to a charging lien in a civil action, the trial court concluded that such a right could not exist, as a matter of law, in a marital dissolution action. The court specifically determined that such a hen would violate rule 1.5 (d) (1) of the Rules of Professional Conduct and that it would violate the pubhc pohcy of Connecticut. The court further determined that before a charging lien can be recognized, the attorney must create anew asset, a previously not existing pool of funds for the chent, such as occurs, for example, when the chent is successful in a personal injury case, but which it determined does not occur when dividing existing marital property pursuant to General Statutes § 46b-81.
Neither of the parties to this case, nor the trial court, has cited any state statute or a case based on the Connecticut common law that holds that a charging hen may not be acquired by an attorney in a dissolution
As previously set forth in this opinion, the court held that to recognize a charging hen in a dissolution of marriage action would violate rule 1.5 (d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which provides: “A lawyer shall not enter into an arrangement for, charge, or collect: (1) Any fee in a domestic relations matter, the payment or amount of which is contingent upon the securing of a dissolution of marriage or civil union or upon the amount of alimony or support, or property settlement in lieu thereof . . . .” (Emphasis added.) We conclude that recognizing a charging hen in a dissolution of marriage action would not implicate rule 1.5 (d) (1) because a charging hen would not render the attorney’s fee “contingent upon the securing of a dissolution of marriage ... or upon the amount of alimony or support, or property settlement in heu thereof . . . .”
After considering rule 1.5 and other rules of professional conduct, we conclude that rule 1.8 (i) (1) permits a charging hen in connection with a dissolution action. Rule 1.8 (i) provides: “A lawyer shah not acquire a proprietary interest in the cause of action or subject matter of htigation the lawyer is conducting for a chent, except that the lawyer may: (1) Acquire a hen granted by law to secure the lawyer’s fee or expenses . . . .” This rule thus specifically recognizes that an attorney may acquire a charging hen, a hen granted by our common law, in connection with htigation, and it contains no specific prohibition against such a hen in connection with dissolution of marriage htigation.
We also disagree with the court’s conclusions that to recognize a charging lien in a dissolution of marriage action would violate pubhc pohcy and that such a hen could not be recognized because the attorney must create a “new” asset before a charging hen can be acquired.
A charging hen in New York “attaches at the commencement of an action or proceeding. . . . There is no requirement of docketing or filing in order to perfect a charging hen. Nor is it necessary for the attorney to give notice of his claim to the adverse party to protect his hen. An attorney can, however, be held to have waived the hen by his failure to assert it within a reasonable period of time.” D. Freed et ai., “Attorney’s Liens,” N.Y.L.J., Vol. 205, Issue 121, June 25, 1991, p. 8. With respect to a hen against the proceeds of a property distribution, “[a]lthough an attorney’s charging hen does not attach to an award of alimony or maintenance, nothing in the Judiciary Law precludes enforcement of a charging hen upon a distributive award . . . .” Id.
In many, if not ah, of the remaining states, charging hens are recognized under the common law, but some states also protect alimony and support awards from such hens; see W. Hairston, supra, 195-96; but not “funds which counsel has obtained for the chent
An attorney usually is entitled to the assistance of the court to enforce a common-law charging lien. “A special, or charging, lien may ... be available to an attorney who has obtained a judgment, decree, or award for his or her clients. This lien generally gives an attorney the right to recover his taxable costs, fees, and money expended on behalf of the client from a fund recovered by his aid, and the right to have the court interfere to prevent payment by the judgment debtor to the creditor in fraud of the attorney’s right to it. The lien is not dependent on possession as in the case of a retaining lien. Counsel must, instead, take affirmative action to enforce it.” Id., § 2 [a], p. 603.
There is no statutory basis for an attorney’s lien in Connecticut, and the defendants do not claim that an express agreement is the basis for the alleged charging lien;
Thus, according to Bassett, for an equitable lien to arise there must be an intention by the parties that specific property will secure the obligations in the contract. See id.; see also Connecticut Co. v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co., 94 Conn. 19, 33-34, 107 A. 646 (1919) (“[i]n order . . . that [an equitable] hen may arise . . . the agreement must . . . indicate with sufficient clearness an intent that the property so described or rendered capable of identification is to be held, given or transferred as security for the obligation” [internal quotation marks omitted]). The
An equitable charging hen will arise when the arrangement between the attorney and chent intends that a hen exist on the proceeds of the action. In DeWandelaer v. Sawdey, 78 Conn. 654, 658, 63 A. 446 (1906), for example, our Supreme Court held that an equitable hen arises when an attorney “ ‘[takes] up a case’ with the understanding that he must look to the judgment to be obtained for compensation for his services and disbursements.” Indeed, the court in DeWandelaer observed that such a practice is “not uncommon.” Id. Under these circumstances, the arrangement between the attorney and the chent, “interpreted in the hght of the conditions in which they were placed,” contains an implicit intention that the proceeds of the judgment will secure the attorney’s payment. Connecticut Co. v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co., supra, 94 Conn. 34; see also Wolf v. Sherman, 682 A.2d 194, 200 (D.C. 1996) (whether equitable attorney’s hen arises depends on “whether the agreement and surrounding circumstances sufficiently indicated that the parties looked to a particular source for payment of the [attorney’s] fee”).
The circumstances of each dissolution action, then, must be considered by the court in whether to find the existence of an equitable charging hen. At the outset of a marital dissolution action, it may be difficult to predict exactly how all of the parties’ property will be divided between them. See Casey v. Casey, 82 Conn. App. 378, 386-87, 844 A.2d 250 (2004) (“[i]t is . . . well settled . . . that there is no set formula the court is obligated to apply when dividing the parties’ assets and that the court is vested with broad discretion in fashioning financial orders”). Under these circumstances, an agreement between an attorney and client may not specifically “deal with some specific property,” to which the attorney can look to secure his or her payment. See Bassett v. City Bank & Trust Co., supra, 116 Conn. 631. Typically, at the initiation of the representation, a party in a matrimonial action can promise,
Other state law is instructive. In Florida, hke Connecticut, for example, common-law charging hens have been recognized for more than 150 years. See D’Urso v. Lyons, supra, 97 Conn. App. 256, citing, e.g., Gager v. Watson, 11 Conn. 168, 173 (1836); Sinclair, Louis, Siegel, Heath, Nussbaum & Zavertnik, P.A. v. Baucom, 428 So. 2d 1383, 1384 (Fla. 1983), citing, e.g., Carter v. Davis, 8 Fla. 183 (1858), and Carter v. Bennett, 6 Fla. 214 (1855); Randall v. Archer, 5 Fla. 438 (1854). To impose a charging hen in Florida, the attorney must demonstrate that she had an express or implied contract with the chent, that she had an express or implied understanding for payment of fees out of the recovery secured in the action, that the chent either disputed or avoided payment of the fee and that there was timely notice of the charging hen by either filing a notice of hen or by otherwise pursuing the hen in the original action. Daniel Mones, P.A. v. Smith, 486 So. 2d 559, 561 (Fla. 1986). In a Florida dissolution of marriage action, property awarded to a chent as an equitable distribution of property is considered a proceed to
As previously set forth, in Connecticut, attorney charging hens have been recognized at least since 1836, in the case of Gager v. Watson, supra, 11 Conn. 168. Although our courts have not developed a considerable body of law on this issue, they consistently have held that an attorney has a charging hen on any money recovered or fund due the chent at the conclusion of suit, provided the recovery was secured through the attorney’s efforts. See Cooke v. Thresher, supra, 51 Conn. 107; Marsh, Day & Calhoun v. Solomon, supra, 204 Conn. 644; D’Urso v. Lyons, supra, 97 Conn. App. 257. Flrrther, although the issue of a charging hen in a dissolution of marriage action does not appear to have been addressed directly by an appehate court in Connecticut, we are aware of one Superior Court case in which a charging hen was recognized in a such an action. See Hill v. Hill, Superior Court, judicial district of Fairfield, Docket No. FA-91-0374254-S, 2001WL179781, *5 (January 8, 2001), aff'd, 75 Conn. App. 902, 818 A.2d 901 (per curiam), cert. denied, 264 Conn. 911, 826 A.2d 1155 (2003).
On the basis of the foregoing, we conclude that under some circumstances an attorney may acquire a charging lien in a dissolution of marriage action and that the trial court erred in holding otherwise as a matter of law.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
In this opinion BEACH, J., concurred.
James F. Jordan III and Diana M. Jordan were defendants in the underlying action. They are not parties to this appeal, however. We therefore refer in this opinion to the defendants Carlo Forzani and Carlo Forzani, LLC, collectively as the defendants.
The dissolution of marriage judgment was affirmed on appeal on November 23, 2010. See Jordan v. Jordan, 125 Conn. App. 207, 6 A.3d 1206 (2010), cert. denied, 300 Conn. 919, 14 A.3d 333 (2011).
On November 24, 2010, the court granted the motion of James Jordan, as a third party plaintiff, to implead Diana Jordan as third party defendant in this action.
James Jordan did not pursue his claim, however, and the court dismissed it.
We agree that the orders set forth in the dissolution judgment did not give the defendants a perfected security interest in the account prior in right and time to the plaintiffs court-ordered attachment.
We conclude that the defendants have appealed from a final judgment. See General Statutes § 52-400d (a) (“[a]ny court decision on a determination of interest in property under section 52-356c . . . shall be a final decision for the purpose of appeal”).
It is undisputed that the defendants’ services for James Jordan commenced before the plaintiffs prejudgment remedy was granted.
A more modem approach may be that what occurs, however, in a successful personal injury case, is the monetization of previously existing “assets,” e.g., the plaintiffs injuries and the subsequent personal injury claim against a negligent party.
The plaintiff also argues, as he did before the trial court, that a charging hen can be effective only in a case where there is a contingent fee agreement. We note that this contention was addressed and rejected inD ’Urso v. Lyons, supra, 97 Conn. App. 257 (holding that “[t]he plaintiffs claim that an hourly fee agreement may not be the basis for a charging hen is without merit”).
See our previous discussion of this issue in this opinion.
We do note that an express agreement between the defendants and James Jordan, dated October 28, 2009, after the judgment of dissolution was rendered and before judgment was rendered in the present case, was submitted to the trial court. No argument is made on appeal that this document has any relevance. Accordingly, we do not consider it.
In some cases, however, because of a limited number of liquid assets, or assets easily converted to liquid assets, it may be easier to identify likely assets to which a charging lien may attach.
Because the judgment of the trial court in Hill summarily was affirmed on appeal, there was no written decision by this court. A review of the issues raised on appeal in that case reveals that the plaintiffs first issue was whether “the trial court err[ed] in finding that the attorney charging lien [was] valid.” Hill v. Hill, Conn. Appellate Court Records & Briefs, March Term, 2001, Plaintiffs Brief, Statement of the Issues, p. 4. Our summary affirmance of the court’s judgment has no precedential effect.
We also are aware of another Superior Court case where the court upheld an attorney’s right to place a mortgage on the marital home of his client as security for the attorney’s legal fees in a dissolution of marriage action. See Kelly v. Kelly, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. FA-
The “whole contract and the manifest intention of the parties”; Connecticut Co. v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co., supra, 94 Conn. 32; could include the terms both of the retention agreement and any charging lien, even if such lien was not contemporaneously entered into with such retention agreement.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. In this case of first impression, the defendants Carlo Forzani and Carlo Forzani, LLC,
Neither this court nor our Supreme Court has squarely addressed the issue of whether an attorney may acquire an equitable charging lien in a dissolution action. As a result, in concluding that such a charging lien is permissible under certain circumstances, the majority relies heavily on the law of other states, secondary sources and an analogy that it draws between dissolution actions and other general civil actions in Connecticut.
Similarly, the majority has cited no Connecticut case with precedential value in which an equitable charging hen in a dissolution action has been upheld and, instead,
Rule 1.5 (d) of the Rules, of Professional Conduct provides in relevant part: “A lawyer shall not enter into an arrangement for, charge, or collect: (1) Any fee in a domestic relations matter, the payment or amount of which is contingent upon the seeming of a dissolution of marriage or civil union or upon the amount of alimony or support, or property settlement in lieu thereof . . . .” The plain language and official commentary to the rule indicate that rule 1.5 specifically prohibits contingency fee arrangements in dissolution actions; the rule and its commentary, however, are silent regarding the permissibility of charging hens. Accordingly, unlike the trial court, I do not read the express language of rule 1.5 (d) (1) as prohibiting an attorney from asserting a charging hen in a dissolution action. I do, however, beheve that the defendant should be precluded from asserting an equitable charging hen on the judgment in a dissolution action in hght of the pubhc pohey underlying rule 1.5 (d) (1). This court previously has explained that “[t]he main pohey concern behind rule 1.5 (d) is that contingency agreements for a dissolution action
In rejecting the trial court’s conclusion that the recognition of a charging hen in a dissolution action would violate rule 1.5 (d) (1), the majority states that “[t]he recognition of a charging hen . . . would not tie the attorney’s fees in a dissolution of marriage action . . . to the outcome of the case . . . .” While I agree that such a hen does not violate the express terms of the rule, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s assertion as it apphes to this case because the charging hen sought by the defendants, by necessity, tied the defendants’ ability to obtain their fee to the outcome of the case. This court previously has described a charging hen as “a hen placed upon any money recovery or fund due the chent at the conclusion of suit." (Emphasis added.) Marsh, Day & Calhoun v. Solomon, 204 Conn. 639, 643, 529 A.2d 702 (1987). The defendants claim that they obtained a perfected charging hen by operation of law when they “successfully obtained a judgment for [their] chent that included a property distribution award.” On the basis of their own argument, the defendants’ ability to assert a charging hen was predicated on the court first rendering a judgment of dissolution accompanied by certain financial orders. Therefore, even in the absence of a contingency fee arrangement, the defendants still had a pecuniary interest in the outcome of the dissolution action. As a result, I beheve that allowing the defendants to assert an equitable charging hen against the judgment in a marital dissolution action would undermine the pubhc policy concern underlying rule 1.5 (d).
Because the defendants’ ability to obtain their fee by way of the equitable charging hen they assert would be
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
James F. Jordan HI and Diana M. Jordan were also defendants in the underlying action. Because they are not parties to this appeal, for convenience, we refer to Carlo Forzani and Carlo Forzani, LLC, as the defendants.
Because I agree with the majority’s recitation of the facts, they need not be reiterated here.
The majority also has concluded that rule 1.8 (i) (1) of the Buies of Professional Conduct permits an attorney to assert a charging lien in a dissolution action. Rule 1.8 (i) provides in relevant part: “A lawyer shall not
My conclusion in this dissent is confined to equitable charging liens asserted against judgments in marital dissolution actions in light of the unique policy concerns raised by dissolution actions. I do not question the legitimacy of an otherwise valid equitable charging lien in the context of other types of civil actions.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.