Grant v. Stecker & Huff, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 January 1942
• Docket Number: No. 21.,21.
• Citation: 300 Mich. 174,1 N.W.2d 500
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: GRANT v. STECKER & HUFF, Inc., et al.

300 Mich. 174

1 N.W.2d 500

GRANT

v.STECKER & HUFF, Inc., et al.

No. 21.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Jan. 5, 1942.

Suit by John Grant against Stecker & Huff, Inc., and Rodney Arms to have plaintiff's rights determined under contracts entered into with defendants, whereby plaintiff agreed to attempt to obtain proper compensation for defendants for lands taken from defendants in widening a highway upon defendants' agreeing that plaintiff should have one-half of what he obtained. From a decree dismissing the bill, the plaintiff appeals.

Decree reversed, and a decree entered in favor of the plaintiff.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Oakland County, in Chancery; George B. Hartrick, Judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Wiley, Streeter & Ford, of Detroit, for appellant.

Pelton & McGee, of Pontiac, for appellees.

WIEST, Justice.

In widening Grand River highway in Farmington township, Oakland county, the State highway department established the road across lots in a subdivision without acquiring title or coming to an understanding with the owners.

Defendants herein, owners of a lot, were unable to amicably obtain compensation. Plaintiff, a real estate broker, offered to endeavor to obtain the proper compensation and defendants each agreed he should have one-half of what he obtained, he to pay expenses, including legal services. Plaintiff employed attorneys and, by legal proceedings, obtained payment of the compensation. The State warrant for the payment was made out to defendants and the attorneys. Plaintiff paid the attorneys for their services and they endorsed the warrant and handed it to him, but defendants refused to make the endorsement or pay plaintiff his agreed compensation on the ground their agreements were contrary to public policy and void under the common-law rule of champerty. Thereupon plaintiff filed the bill herein to have his rights determined. Upon hearing the court adjudged the agreements contrary to public policy and, therefore, void, dismissed the bill and directed plaintiff to surrender up the warrant. Plaintiff reviews by appeal.

The question in the case is whether the agreements were champertous. Defendants had valid claims. Plaintiff was not an attorney at law; neither did he attempt to act as such but employed attorneys, at his charge, who acted in the names of and in accord with the desires of defendants. The attorneys were to receive for their services one-half of plaintiff's one-half of the recovery obtained and have been so paid by plaintiff.

It ill becomes defendants to withhold from plaintiff his agreed and earned compensation and leave him to stand all the expense of procuring their just rights, under invocation of a rule which became inert ages ago.

The writer has spent considerable time among the musty tomes of ancient English legal lore and the gleaning leads to the opinion that, to resurrect the ancient rule of champerty and dub it indicative of up-to-date public policy and let it decide this case, would wholly remove it from its old-time setting and reason, and employ it in working an...