Currie v. Cowles

19 Bosw. 452
CourtThe Superior Court of New York City
DecidedMarch 24, 1860
StatusPublished

This text of 19 Bosw. 452 (Currie v. Cowles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering The Superior Court of New York City primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Currie v. Cowles, 19 Bosw. 452 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1860).

Opinion

Bosworth, Ch. J.

If the appellant was entitled to a credit for the just value of any of the services, rendered by him for the plaintiff, which are set up in the answer, the judgment is necessarily erroneous.

In the answer they are set up “ as a counterclaim,” and $1,500 is alleged to be their value, and a judgment of $1,500 as their value is prayed. That the pleading is so defective in form that a motion that it be made more definite and certain would have been granted, may be conceded for the purposes of the present inquiry; and yet it will not follow that the appellant should not have been permitted to prove the matters alleged, and have been allowed the sums established by the evidence to be just.

Ho motion was made, under section 160, to make this part of the answer more definite and certain; nor was the sufficiency of it tested by demurrer under section 153 of the Code. On the contrary, the plaintiff replied to the allegations contained in this part of the answer, and replied to them as purporting to set up a counterclaim.

On such a state of facts, it seems to us that we cannot avoid enforcing against the plaintiff the rule stated and applied in [460]*460Seeley v. Engell, (3 Kern., 548, [II.;]) that, having omitted to move, under section 160 of the Code, “ and especially by replying as though he understood what was intended to be set up, he was precluded from objecting to the evidence on the trial.”

The Referee, at one stage of the trial, seems to have acted upon this principle; for, although the plaintiff objected to the admission of the evidence, the Referee overruled the objection, and admitted it.

This decision being in favor of the appellant, he is entitled, for the purpose of determining the question whether he shall have a new trial, to have that decision treated as being correct. (Rogers v. Murray, 3 Bosw., 357-365.)

Unless, therefore, upon facts found correctly, (in the sense that they are sustained by sufficient evidence,) the Referee has rightly held that the appellant is not entitled to setoff or counterclaim the amount of a just compensation for his services, on the ground that he has forfeited all right to be paid anything for them, the judgment is necessarily erroneous.

The Referee has found, as a fact, that the appellant “ had rendered various legal services for the plaintiff” in eight several matters which he specifies, besides his services “ in relation to the said four houses and lots” which are the subject of the plaintiff’s action; and he holds, as a conclusion of law on all the facts found, that the appellant “ has forfeited his right to be compensated for any of them.”

On what principle he has forfeited his right to compensation for any of his services except those in relation to said four houses and lots, or except in relation to the matters and proceedings in which he had violated, or in bad faith had failed to perform his professional duty, was not suggested to us on the argument of this appeal. But the respondent’s counsel, as we understood him, did not contend for a rule that would make professional infidelity in one suit work a forfeiture of the right to compensation for meritorious services honorably performed in another.

The Referee, therefore, assuming the facts found by him to be warranted by the evidence, could not justly, upon any recognized rule of equity, disallow a just compensation for services rendered in suits and proceedings disconnected from the appellant’s alleged [461]*461employment and undertaking, to attend the sale of the four houses and lots by the Sheriff, and protect the plaintiff’s interests in respect thereto, “ and to procure the title of said lots for the plaintiff.”

The complaint alleges a contract between the plaintiff and the defendant, by force of which he was to bid in the four houses and lots at a Sheriff’s sale of the same, to protect the interests of the plaintiff as the owner of the equity of the redemption thereof, and to redeem the same for the plaintiff’s benefit; and that although he had perfected the legal title in himself, yet that in equity, if not in fact, they were redeemed by the plaintiff, and that he is entitled to a conveyance thereof; and prays as relief that the appellant and his wife be adjudged to convey the same to him ; that the appellant be also adjudged to pay all damages which the plaintiff has sustained by reason of the “ negligence, fraud and acts ” of the appellant in the premises; and that the appellant “ be required to come to a true and just accounting with the plaintiff of and concerning the moneys and securities aforesaid, which he had of has of and for the use of the plaintiff, and pass over the balance that may be found due.”

“The moneys and securities aforesaid,” referred to in the prayer for judgment, were, as to most of such moneys, collected and obtained through the services of the appellant as the attorney and counsel of the plaintiff, in suits or proceedings in his behalf against third persons, and upon all just principles of accounting in respect thereto, the appellant, while compelled to account for the amount so received, and for the amount of profit which the plaintiff will have realized from a just and equitable use or application of them, should be allowed such sum as will fairly compensate for conducting the suits or proceedings in and by means of which such moneys were collected.

The action is founded on a contract alleged to have been made between the plaintiff and the defendant, and the Referee has not only found that it was made, but has found, what the complaint does not allege, that the appellant was employed “ to procure the title of said lots for the plaintiff.”

The Referee has also found as facts, that certain specified acts of the appellant “ were fraudulent towards his client, the plain[462]*462tiff, and a breach of the duty of the said Cowles, as such attorney and counsel.”

The Referee has not otherwise or in other language found, as a matter of fact, that the appellant actually intended to defraud, or that he actually intended to be guilty of a breach of known or conscious duty.

In Hawley v. Cramer, (4 Cow., 744,) the rule, in an analogous case, was held to be, that, where the estate has been sold to a bona fide purchaser, so that the party equitably entitled to it, or to the proceeds which might be realized from a resale, cannot reach the same: the defendant shall be compelled to account for all that he has made by his disposition of it, and must pay interest on the profits realized.

In the present case the Referee has given, or assumed to give, to the plaintiff the full value of the property at the time at which he holds the plaintiff’s equitable title became perfect, over and above what he should have paid to perfect such title, with interest on such value from that date.

He has, therefore, not charged the appellant with any amount which it is found, as a fact, that he had realized, but has made him a purchaser at its then fair value, and charged him with that sum and interest, or has assumed to do so. But, in Hawley v. Cramer, (supra,)

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Van Epps v. Van Epps
9 Paige Ch. 237 (New York Court of Chancery, 1841)
Seth v. Cramer
4 Cow. 717 (Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors, 1825)
Brower v. Orser
2 Bosw. 365 (The Superior Court of New York City, 1858)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
19 Bosw. 452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/currie-v-cowles-nysuperctnyc-1860.