Eggert & Lockwood v. Interstate Investment & Development Co.

• Decision Date: 15 March 1910
• Citation: 125 N.W. 246,146 Iowa 481
• Parties: EGGERT & LOCKWOOD, Appellants, v. THE INTERSTATE INVESTMENT & DEVELOPMENT CO
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

125 N.W. 246

146 Iowa 481

EGGERT & LOCKWOOD, Appellants, v. THE INTERSTATE INVESTMENT & DEVELOPMENT CO

Supreme Court of Iowa

March 15, 1910

Appeal from Floyd District Court.--HON. J. F. CLYDE, Judge.

ACTION on an account for attorney's fees. The defendant denied that the service for which plaintiffs' charges were made were rendered to or in behalf of defendant, and by way of counterclaim alleged that moneys received by plaintiffs and credited on their said account to defendant were unlawfully paid to plaintiffs and received by them, and asked judgment against plaintiffs therefor. At the conclusion of the evidence, defendant moved for a directed verdict as to plaintiffs' claim. On the overruling of this motion, the court submitted the case to the jury on the issues raised by the pleadings and the evidence, and required the jury to return findings of fact. By the answers returned and the general verdict the jury found in favor of plaintiffs for the entire amount of their account. On motion of defendant the verdict and findings of the jury were set aside and a new trial was granted. Plaintiffs appeal from the order of the court setting aside the verdict and special finding, and granting a new trial, and defendant appeals from the action of the court in overruling a motion for a directed verdict on plaintiffs' claim. Plaintiffs, having first appealed will be treated as appellants. Affirmed on plaintiffs' appeal; defendant's appeal dismissed.

Affirmed on plaintiffs' appeal. Defendant's appeal dismissed.

Eggert & Lockwood, pro se.

Yoran & Yoran and Hurd, Lenehan & Kiesel, for appellee.

OPINION

MCCLAIN, J.

The defendant, a corporation organized under the laws of Iowa being the owner of certain real estate on which there are located as claimed by it lithographic and cement stone quarries, certain directors thereof purporting to represent the defendant company entered into some negotiations with a corporation organized in the state of New York referred to in the record as the Radio Company for the transfer of the properties of the defendant to the said Radio Company in exchange for stock in the latter company. Subsequently other stockholders of the defendant company brought an action in the Circuit Court of the United States to set aside certain transfers of stock of the defendant company to the Radio Company and for other relief. In this litigation plaintiffs appeared for the stockholders of the Interstate Company and resisted the relief asked by plaintiffs in the suit. A portion of the charges in plaintiffs' account are for services rendered in this suit in the Circuit Court of the United States and other portions are for services rendered to the officers and directors of the Interstate Company who were subsequently made defendants in the suit in said court purporting to act for the Interstate Company. In brief, the claim of plaintiffs is that the officers and directors of the Interstate Company had authority to act for said company in the employment of plaintiffs as attorneys and that plaintiffs rendered the services charged for as attorneys for said company; while the claim of defendant is that plaintiffs were never lawfully employed for it and rendered no services in its interests.

I. In view of the large discretion properly vested in the trial court to set aside a verdict because not supported by the evidence, we have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that we should not interfere with its order granting a new trial in this case. To review the evidence sufficiently to point out that at least some of the services rendered by plaintiffs were rendered to the officers and directors of the defendant company in their individual interest and not to the defendant company as a corporation would require an elaboration of the evidence presented in the record which would not be justified. The suit in the federal court was in the interests of the defendant company and against the officers and directors as individuals who purporting to represent the defendant company had employed the plaintiffs, and the finding of the federal court against the officers and directors as individuals almost conclusively shows that their actions were not binding upon the company which they purported to represent. In allowing the entire amount of plaintiffs' claim as against the defendant company, we are satisfied that the jury exceeded their proper discretion and made findings of fact contrary to the evidence under the law as given them by the trial court. The ruling which set aside the verdict and granted a new trial to the defendant was so clearly within the trial court's proper discretion that we shall not interfere with it.

II. There is more serious difficulty in disposing of defendant's appeal, but we have not gone through the record in detail for the purpose of determining...