Harris v. Clark, 11676.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1924
• Docket Number: No. 11676.,11676.
• Citation: 81 Ind.App. 494,142 N.E. 881
• Parties: HARRIS v. CLARK et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

81 Ind.App. 494

142 N.E. 881

HARRIS

v.CLARK et al.

No. 11676.^*

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 1.

March 12, 1924.

Appeal from Superior Court, Marion County; S. S. Nullen, Judge.

Action by Charles B. Clark and another against Elijah Harris. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Reversed, and new trial granted.

See, also, 132 N. E. 6.

Joseph R. Williams and Chalmer Schlosser, both of Indianapolis, for appellant.

Martin M. Hugg and Bernard Korbly, both of Indianapolis, for appellees.

ENLOE, J.

The appellees brought this action to recover attorneys fees, for services alleged to have been rendered by them for the appellant. The complaint was in two paragraphs; the first being founded upon an alleged special contract as to the amount to be paid by appellant for said services, and the second upon an implied promise to pay the reasonable value of said services.

The appellant filed an answer in general denial to each paragraph of said complaint, and also an affirmative paragraph, alleging a mutual rescission of said contract; he also filed a counterclaim.

The issues being closed, the cause was submitted to the court for trial, and resulted in a finding and judgment in favor of the appellees, from which judgment this appeal is prosecuted; the error assigned being the overruling of appellant's motion for a new trial.

It is first urged by the appellant that the decision of the court is not sustained by sufficient evidence, in this, that there is no evidence that the appellees, or either of them, had ever been admitted to the bar, as an attorney at law, in any court of general jurisdiction, or of appellate jurisdiction, in the state of Indiana, as required by section 997a, Burns' 1914 (Acts 1913, p. 940).

An examination of the evidence, as the same appears in the record in this case, does not reveal any direct testimony upon this subject. Neither of the appellees testified that they, or either of them, had ever been admitted to practice law in this state, nor were any records of any court of general jurisdiction, or of appellate jurisdiction in this state, offered or read in evidence showing such admission of the appellees as attorneys at law in this state. It is true that the trial court made a specific finding that “the plaintiffs had been duly admitted as attorneys at law, and each of them had been duly admitted as an attorney at law *** at and during the times mentioned in said complaint”; but unless there is some evidence to support such finding, either directly or by legitimate inference, it must fall.

[1] The first question, therefore, which is presented by this record, is: May a person who has not been duly admitted to practice law in this state in conformity with the provisions of said act of 1913, supra, recover for legal services by him so rendered?

Section 2 of said act (997b, Burns' 1914) makes it a crime, punishable by fine, or by fine and imprisonment in the county jail, to conduct a trial in any court or “to engage in the business of a practicing lawyer” in this state without having first been duly admitted to practice law as provided in section 1 of said act. It is fundamental that the law will not assist a person to reap the fruits or benefit of an unlawful act-an act done in violation of law. As said in the case of Winchester, etc., Co. v. Veal, 145 Ind. 506, 41 N. E. 334, 44 N. E. 353:

“In the case now under consideration, the appellee having violated an express statute in loaning the money in his hands as county treasurer, and the question being before us for decision, the holding must be that he can maintain no action based upon his own illegal act. This has been the invariable decision of all courts.”

See, also, Griswold v. Waddington, 16 Johns. (N. Y.) 438, in which case Kent, Chancellor, said:

“There is, to my mind, something monstrous in the proposition, that a court of law ought to carry into effect a contract founded upon a breach of law. It is encouraging disobedience, and giving to disloyalty its unhallowed fruits. There is no such mischievous doctrine to be deduced from the books.”

In Beecher v. Peru Trust Co., 49 Ind. App. 184, 97 N. E. 23, it was said:

“The prevailing weight of authority establishes the proposition that where a statute forbids carrying on a business without first procuring a license, paving a tax, and complying with prescribed tests, inspection, registration or the like, contracts made by persons in carrying on such business...