Colonial Plumbing & Heating Supply Co. v. Contemporary Const. Co., Inc.
Decision Date | 23 August 1983 |
Docket Number | No. 81-94-A,81-94-A |
Citation | 464 A.2d 741 |
Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Parties | COLONIAL PLUMBING & HEATING SUPPLY CO. v. CONTEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION CO., INC. and Robert W. Leonard, Jr. ppeal. |
The defendant appeals an award of an attorney's fee in a Superior Court action on a promissory note. We sustain the appeal and vacate the award of the attorney's fee.
On October 19, 1976, defendant, Contemporary Construction Co., Inc., signed a promissory note in favor of plaintiff in the face amount of $9,981.73. The note bore interest at the rate of 10.5 percent per annum. It provided also, in part:
"If this note shall be placed in the hands of any attorney for collection, through legal procedures or otherwise, the undersigned will pay to the holder thereof a reasonable attorney's fee together with the costs and expenses of collection within the limits permitted by law."
The note also contained the personal guaranty of defendant, Robert W. Leonard, Jr. (Leonard). 1
The matter was tried before a Superior Court justice sitting without a jury. The note was introduced into evidence, as was a copy of plaintiff's ledger sheet reflecting payments on the note. At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial justice determined that this note was a demand note given in satisfaction for an account payable with interest at the rate of 10.5 percent. The trial justice also found that Leonard, who had personally guaranteed the note, was absolutely liable on it. After rendering a decision that the principal sum due on the note was $8,921.94 and computing interest due at that time in the amount of $3,123.68 plus costs, the trial justice then awarded an attorney's fee in the amount of $3,071.08. The trial justice stated:
The defendant contends that the trial justice erred in awarding an attorney's fee on a record devoid of any evidence to support the fee request. Apparently conceding that the record is silent in this matter, plaintiff nevertheless argues that the award should stand. He asserts that the trial justice's expertise both as a lawyer and as a judge enables him to take judicial notice of the difficulty plaintiff and plaintiff's counsel encountered in obtaining the judgment below. He therefore suggests that the trial justice properly acted upon his personal knowledge of charges generally made by other attorneys in this kind of case. The plaintiff also contends that since the fee award comports with the Rhode Island Bar Association minimum-fee schedule (revised 1969), it should be allowed. We disagree.
The plaintiff's argument based on a minimum-fee schedule is inappropriate in light of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975). In that case the court invalidated the minimum-fee schedule published by the Fairfax County, Virginia, Bar Association on the ground that it violated the Sherman Act. We therefore could not uphold an attorney's fee based on this impermissible guideline.
We also reject the argument that the trial justice, because of his expertise as a lawyer and a judge, could take judicial notice of regularly accepted methods of computing legal fees in commercial collection matters. Basically, a court may take judicial notice of two categories of facts. One category consists of facts generally known with certainty by all reasonably intelligent people in the community, and the other consists of facts capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources of indisputable accuracy. McCormick's Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 329-30 (2d ed. Cleary 1972.) Because a trial justice's knowledge of an accepted method of fee computation arises from his expertise both as a lawyer and as a judge, these particular facts would by definition be eliminated from either category of which a court should take judicial notice.
This court has had occasion to consider what constitutes a proper fee for an attorney's services. In Palumbo v. United States Rubber Co., 102 R.I. 220, 229 A.2d 620 (1967), this court stated that an attorney's fee should be "consistent with the services rendered, that is to say, which is fair and reasonable." The court held that
Id. at 223-24, 229 A.2d at 622-23.
Subsequently, the court adopted Supreme Court Rule 47, the Code of Professional Responsibility, and Disciplinary Rule 2-106--Fees for Legal Services--which provides:
(1) The time and labor required, the novelty and difficulty of the...
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