Baker v. Moor

• Decision Date: 08 January 1890
• Citation: 10 S.E. 737,84 Ga. 186
• Parties: BAKER v. MOOR.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

10 S.E. 737

84 Ga. 186

BAKER v. MOOR.

Supreme Court of Georgia

January 8, 1890

Error from superior court, Bartow county; MILNER, Judge.

McCutchen & Shumate, J. B. Conyers, and Baker & Heyward, for plaintiff in error.

A. W Fite and T. W. Akin, for defendant in error.

BLANDFORD J.

1. This was a rule brought by Mrs. Moor, the defendant in error against Baker, the plaintiff in error, to compel the payment of certain money which it was alleged he had collected for her as an attorney at law. Baker, in his answer to the rule set up and claimed that the money collected and in his hands was his by virtue of a contract he had made with the defendant in error, which contract he alleged was that he was to have half of all he collected of a certain claim in behalf of the defendant in error against the estate of one Lem Johnson. He alleged that when he undertook the collection of the claim it was upon a conditional fee, no amount being agreed upon for his services as an attorney; that afterwards upon his assuring the defendant in error that a certain compromise which had been agreed upon and entered into between a former attorney of the defendant in error and the representative of Johnson's estate, by which it was agreed to take less than the sum due upon the judgment and execution, was void, it was agreed on the part of the defendant in error that if said agreement of compromise or settlement should be set aside or ignored he was to have half of what he should collect on said claim. This was denied by the defendant in error, and there was some testimony introduced on this question; but the evidence tends to the conclusion that Baker, the attorney, did not succeed in having the compromise and settlement set aside or ignored, but that the claim was settled upon the basis of the compromise and settlement previously made. It appears that the jury allowed Baker 20 percent. for his services. This exceeded the amount stated in any of the testimony to be the value of his services. So we think, looking to the testimony upon this issue between the parties, that the verdict of the jury was not so strongly and decidedly against the weight of evidence as to lead us to the conclusion that the court abused its discretion in refusing a new trial on the ground that the verdict was contrary to law and the evidence.

2. It was further alleged that the court committed error in refusing to grant a new trial on the ground of...