Halsell v. Turner

• Decision Date: 09 May 1904
• Citation: 36 So. 531,84 Miss. 432
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBERT E. HALSELL v. WILLIAM D. TURNER

36 So. 531

84 Miss. 432

ROBERT E. HALSELL v. WILLIAM D. TURNER

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 9, 1904

March 1904

FROM the circuit court of Jones county. HON. JOHN R. ENOCHS Judge.

Turner appellee, was plaintiff, and Halsell, appellant, was defendant in the court below. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor the defendant appealed to the supreme court.

Turner employed Halsell to collect a debt due him from the city of Laurel for wages, of which $ 100 was exempt from execution or garnishment under Code 1892, § 1963, par. 10a. Halsell brought suit, and collected $ 116.80, and kept it, claiming that Turner owed him all of it except about $ 11 as attorney's fees for services rendered as such on several different occasions. Turner brought this suit against Halsell to recover the entire sum collected. The court below gave a peremptory instruction to find for the plaintiff for the entire amount.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Harper & Potter, for appellant.

It is well settled in Mississippi that a lawyer has a lien on the funds of his client in his possession, collected under a judgment, for his fee in that particular case, but not on a general account. Stewart v. Flowers, 44 Miss. 515; Pope v. Armstrong, 3 Smed. & M., 214; Cage v. Miles, 3 Smed. & M., 223; Harney v. DeMoss, 3 Howard, 175.

The court clearly erred in giving the peremptory instruction in favor of Turner for the full amount. It should have allowed Halsell to offset his fee for services rendered in obtaining and collecting the money in his hands, since he had a lien on it for his fee. It is manifest that Turner's right to an exemption could not prevail against the lien of Halsell on this specific fund.

R. E. Halsell, pro see, on same side.

Olin C. Hunt, for appellee.

An attorney may have a lien on a client's papers for a general balance of account; but he has no such lien on his client's money. His lien on money is limited to a liquidated fee in the case in which the money is collected, and unless the fee is liquidated, he has no lien. And his right of set-off is good only to the extent of his lien for fees in that particular case. Dunn v. Vannerson, 7 How. (Miss.), 579; Pope v. Armstrong, 3 Smed. & M., 214; Case, Assignee, v. Wilkinson & Miles, Id., 223; Pugh, Administrator, v. Boyd, 38 Miss. 326; Stewart v. Flowers, 44 Miss. 531, and cases there cited; Harney v. DeMoss, 3 How. (Miss.), 175.

But appellee forfeited his right to a fee in the case of City of Laurel v. Turner because of his refusal to pay over the $ 116.80 collected in that suit. "When an attorney collects money for his client, and, without legal reason, retains the same and refuses to pay it over, whereby the client is forced to resort to legal proceedings against him, involving the employment of another attorney, the collecting attorney loses his right to compensation for the collection of the funds." 3 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2d ed.), 444, and notes. It is as much a part of the attorney's contract to pay over as to collect funds, and if he breaches his contract, he cannot recover anything. Wooten v. Read, 2 Smed. & M., 585; Timberlake v. Thayer, 71 Miss. 279; Gray v. Conyers, 70 Ga. 349; Breden v. Kingland, 4 Watts (Pa).

There is still another reason why no set-off can be allowed against the $ 116.80 collected: Turner is a laborer and the head of a family, and claims his exemption as such. To allow the set-off would defeat our exemption laws by taking from him that which the law undertakes to guarantee him. Cleveland v. McCanna, 66 Am. St. Rep., 670; Pruitt v. Beard, 44 Am. Rep., 280; 22 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (1st ed.), and cases cited in note 3.

OPINION

TRULY, J.

The rule in this state has always been that an attorney has a lien on the funds of his client for the services rendered in the proceeding by which...