Manigault v. Daly & Sorenson, LLC

413 P.3d 1114
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 27, 2018
DocketS-17-0163
StatusPublished

This text of 413 P.3d 1114 (Manigault v. Daly & Sorenson, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Manigault v. Daly & Sorenson, LLC, 413 P.3d 1114 (Wyo. 2018).

Opinion

DAVIS, Justice.

[¶1] Petitioner Gabrielle Manigault seeks review of a decision in favor of her former attorneys, Daly & Sorenson, LLC, by a panel of the Wyoming State Bar Committee for Resolution of Fee Disputes. That decision was affirmed by the district court, and we in turn affirm that decision.

ISSUES

[¶2] Manigault raises two issues that may be succinctly restated as follows:

1. Did the panel err in concluding it was neither unreasonable nor abusive for Daly & Sorenson to bill its time using minimum increments of fifteen minutes?
*11162. Did the panel err in concluding the law firm exercised billing judgment and did not excessively bill Manigault for communication between firm members and employees about her case?

FACTS

[¶3] For more than sixteen years, Manigault retained Daly & Sorenson to represent her in ninety-seven separate legal matters ranging from land and oil and gas transactions to ranching, domestic relations, and criminal matters. She typically paid her bills and any accrued interest when proceeds from her oil and gas interests and cattle sales became available.

[¶4] In late 2012, she retained the firm with respect to one of the matters that gave birth to the present case. Manigault's mother sued her to collect on two separate promissory notes on which she owed nearly three million dollars, and to collect accumulated interest, late fees, and attorney fees.

[¶5] The case ultimately settled when Manigault agreed to confess judgment in favor of her mother (notwithstanding her initial position that the money received from her mother was a gift), and in exchange her mother agreed to forgive the entire debt and write off the loss on her taxes. Manigault paid the law firm roughly thirty percent of what it billed in that case, leaving an unpaid balance of approximately $13,116.33.

[¶6] Earlier in 2012, she retained Daly & Sorenson for what the parties call "the trust litigation." It involved the large estate of Manigault's father and its complex distribution through numerous family trusts and family partnerships and his will. Although she and her son were beneficiaries of those trusts, they were controlled by her stepmother, brother, and several attorneys and financial planners. Moreover, they were created and situated in several states and involved far-flung assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The trusts' corpora included stock in publishing companies, holdings in various media outlets, plantations and historic pre-revolution homes in South Carolina, and ranchlands in Wyoming and Montana.

[¶7] The litigation in the trust case primarily involved a trust created in North Carolina and the District of Columbia, which included property in North Carolina and a ranch in Sheridan County, Wyoming. Manigault entered the Sheridan County property to investigate whether the asset was being subjected to waste at the hands of the trustee. The trustee then accused her of trespass and interference with trust operations, and sought to limit her access to any trust property. The ensuing litigation raised issues regarding waste or embezzlement of trust assets, the current location and value of those assets, proper funding of the trusts after Manigault's father died, and the extent of the potentially considerable benefit due to Manigault from the various trusts and her father's other holdings.

[¶8] During investigation and discovery in the trust case, the law firm developed concerns about possible nonfeasance or malfeasance on the part of the various trustees and their accountants. Those concerns required investigation into suspected waste of trust assets, and the firm needed to retain tax and accounting experts to review tens of thousands of pages of documents and assist them in preparation for numerous depositions to be conducted in several states.

[¶9] At the same time the need for those additional expenditures arose, Manigault's account with Daly & Sorenson was in arrears to the tune of over $71,400. Efforts to resolve that problem so that the firm could continue with discovery in the trust case proved fruitless, despite Manigault's repeated promises of payment. The district court eventually permitted the firm to withdraw from representing her in the trust litigation.

[¶10] In early December of 2013, Daly & Sorenson sued Manigault to recover more than $84,500 it claimed she still owed for representation in the promissory note case and the trust case, and for interest it claimed on the outstanding balance. On March 11, 2014, she contested that amount by submitting a Petition for Resolution of Fee Dispute to the Wyoming State Bar. The petition was heard by a three-person panel on May 5, 2014.

*1117[¶11] On May 14, the panel found that the hourly rates charged by Daly & Sorenson were reasonable, and that since 1997 it had represented Manigault in many legal matters without a written agreement. The absence of such an agreement led the panel to deduct interest and fees for long distance phone calls from the amount it found due the firm. It also deducted charges for the preparation of two motions which benefited the law firm but not Manigault, as well as charges for clerical work it determined were improperly billed at paralegal rates. Finally, it also deducted for a single instance of accidental double billing, and it concluded that Manigault owed the firm $64,621.05 after all of these adjustments.

[¶12] Shortly thereafter, Manigault sought judicial review of that decision, raising only the two complaints that are now before this Court. The district court issued its decision in that proceeding on August 27, 2015. It concluded that although the panel did not say as much, its determination that certain categories of charges should be deducted from the amount Manigault owed was tantamount to a finding that the firm had not carried its burden of showing that those charges were reasonable. It found those aspects of the panel's decision amenable to substantial evidence review, and on that basis affirmed it in part.

[¶13] It could not say the same about the two other complaints raised by Manigault, however, because the panel did not clearly address those matters. The court therefore remanded the case to the panel so that it could make findings of fact and conclusions of law as to why it failed to reduce Manigault's bill with respect to minimum increment billing and billing for intraoffice communications.

[¶14] On February 18, 2016, the panel determined in its second decision that Daly & Sorenson billed Manigault according to minimum increments of fifteen minutes, that such was its normal practice, and that this had been the practice it had employed with Manigault in ninety-seven separate matters over several years. It also determined that the firm's use of those increments was not unreasonable.

[¶15] With respect to billing for certain information exchanges between a firm attorney and another attorney or paralegal employed by the firm, the panel determined that this was likewise the law firm's normal practice, that it had been employed throughout its long history of representing Manigault, and that it was not unreasonable. The panel's consequent decision to deduct nothing further from the amount owed to the law firm led to a second petition for judicial review filed on March 25, 2016.

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413 P.3d 1114, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/manigault-v-daly-sorenson-llc-wyo-2018.