Andrewes v. Haas

• Decision Date: 25 February 1915
• Parties: ANDREWES v. HAAS et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

214 N.Y. 255

108 N.E. 423

ANDREWES

v.HAAS et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 25, 1915.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Action by Harold A. Andrewes against Albert Haas and another, copartners under the style of Haas Bros. A judgment of the Trial Term dismissing the complaint was affirmed by the Appellate Division (160 App. Div. 421,144 N. Y. Supp. 1060), and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Harold A. Andrewes, of New York City, for appellant.

Louis B. Eppstein, of New York City, for respondent.

CARDOZO, J.

The plaintiff is a member of the bar. He complains that the defendants refused to prosecute an 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 25 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, 69,82 N. E. 742,14 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1101, 123 Am. St. Rep. 533,13 Ann. Cas. 441. 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, 45 Am. Rep. 263;Matter of Dunn, 205 N. Y. 398, 402,98 N. E. 914, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 536;Nutt v. Knut, 200 U. S. 12, 21, 26 Sup. Ct. 216, 50 L. Ed. 348;Mesa County Bank v. Berry, 24 Colo. App. 487, 135 Pac. 129. The notion that such a thing is 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. 610,146 N. Y. Supp. 1041;Carlisle v. Barnes, 102 App. Div. 573,92 N. Y. Supp. 917. We are not...