Andrewes v. . Haas
Cases that cite this one
37 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.
- Robertson v. National Spiritualists' Ass'n of the United States (Tex. App. 1929)
- In re Air Passenger Comp. Res. Sys. Antitrust Lit. (United States District Court for the Central District of California 1989)
- Knipe v. Wheelehan (Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York 1916)
- Scarola Ellis LLP v. Padeh (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 2014)
- Scarola Ellis LLP v. Padeh (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 2014)
- Lemmer v. Charney (Cal. Ct. App. 2011)
- In re Yablon (United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. New York 1992)
- Succession of Wallace (La. 1991)
- Walters Ex Rel. Walters v. Hastings (N.M. 1972)
- Crowley v. Wolf (N.Y. 1939)
- In re the Estate of Montgomery (New York Surrogate's Court 1935)
- Enos v. Keating (Wyo. 1928)
- Flagler v. Spellman (2d Cir. 1926)
- Koons v. Richardson (Ill. App. Ct. 1923)
- Frear v. Lewis (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1922)
- Hall v. Orloff (Cal. Ct. App. 1920)
- Greenberg v. Jerome H. Remick & Co. (N.Y. 1920)
- Friedman v. Mindlin (City of New York Municipal Court 1915)
- Smith v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. (District Court, E.D. New York 2024)
- Mahan v. Mahan (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1995)
- Matter of Cooperman (N.Y. 1994)
- Gross v. Russo (New York Supreme Court 1974)
- In re Spellman (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1957)
- Fellner v. Zuckerberg (City of New York Municipal Court 1951)
- Smith v. Young (New York Supreme Court 1948)
This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff is a member of the bar, He complains that the defendants refused to prosecute ar action in which they had retained him as their lawyer The agreement was, he says, that they would sue for $180,000, and pay him twenty-five per cent of the amount recovered. He drafted a complaint for them, but there the action stopped. The defendants refused to go on with it. They were advised and became convinced, as they now allege in their answer, that the action was without merit. Because of their refusal to proceed with it the plaintiff says that they owe him $45,000. In opening his case he declined to prove the value of his services up to the time when the case was halted; he took his stand upon the ground that he was entitled to the profits that would have come to him if his clients had pressed the case to a successful conclusion. At the close of his opening the complaint was dismissed.
The employment of a lawyer to serve for a contingent fee does not make it the client’s duty to continue the lawsuit and thus increase the lawyer’s profit. The lawsuit is his own. He may drop it when he will. Even an express agreement to pay damages for dropping it without his lawyer’s consent, would be against public policy and void. (Matter of Snyder, 190 N. Y. 66, 69.) The law will not imply an agreement which would be illegal, if it were express. It will not, under the coercion of damages, constrain an unwilling suitor to keep a litigation alive for the profit of its officers. (Tenney v. Berger, 93 N. Y. 524; Matter of Dunn, 205 N. Y. 398, 402; Nutt v. Knut, 200 U. S. 12, 21; Mesa County Bank v. Berry, 24 Colo. App. 487.) The notion that such a thing is *259 possible betrays a strange misconception of the function of the legal profession and of its duty to society. When the defendants abandoned the action, they became liable to the plaintiff for the value of the services then rendered. That is the measure of their liability and of his right.
We have been referred to cases where clients, after retaining a lawyer for a contingent fee, have continued the litigation through another lawyer, and have been held answerable in damages. (Martin v. Camp, 161 App. Div. 610; Carlisle v. Barnes, 102 App. Div. 573.) We are not required at this time either to approve or to condemn those rulings. They have not passed unchallenged. (Martin v. Camp, supra Johnson v. Ravitch, 113 App. Div. 810.) In those cases, and in others like them, the clients went on with the lawsuit. Here they abandoned it. We refuse to hold that they were bound to pay their lawyer as if they had gone on with it and won it.
The plaintiff’s claim is without merit. The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
Willard Bartlett, Ch. J., Hiscock, Chase, Cuddeback, Miller and Seabury, JJ., concur.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.