Harton v. Amason, 6 Div. 174

• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama
• Writing for the Court: McCLELLAN, J.
• Citation: 195 Ala. 594,71 So. 180
• Parties: HARTON et al. v. AMASON.
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 174
• Decision Date: 03 February 1916

71 So. 180

195 Ala. 594

HARTON et al.
v.
AMASON.

6 Div. 174

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 3, 1916

Appeal from Chancery Court, Jefferson County; A.H. Benners, Chancellor.

Suit by S.C.M. Amason against H.M. Harton and others. From decree overruling demurrers to the bill, respondents appeal. Reversed and remanded.

The bill alleges the employment by Harton of orator as an attorney to advise him as to his rights against the other respondents to this cause, or some of them, and that Harton authorized the institution and prosecution of a certain suit in the chancery court of Jefferson county against all the respondents to this suit, together with one Lula B. Harton, said cause being numbered 5443, in said chancery court; (2) that orator and Harton, on April 15, 1910, entered into a certain written contract of that date, as to the terms of orator's employment with relation to said suit, and the fee he was to receive for the services rendered therein, a copy of which is attached and marked "Exhibit A." The bill then gives the history of the work done, and the appeals prosecuted from the decrees rendered. It is then alleged that while said last appeal was pending, as aforesaid, Harton, with orator's consent, entered into negotiations with defendants, or some of them, for a settlement of the litigation, and later orator was informed by the solicitors of record for respondent, and also by Harton, that the negotiations had resulted in an agreement for settlement between them, and later, in May, 1915, an instrument, setting forth the terms of said agreement for settlement, was submitted to orator for his approval by counsel of record for respondent, which instrument already bore the signature of said Harton, as well as those of the several respondents, and your orator on, to wit, May 3, 1915, indorsed thereon the following words: "I hereby consent to the foregoing agreement of settlement." A copy of the agreement is made Exhibit B. Orator further shows that afterwards, and in furtherance of said settlement, the respondents Enslen, Johnson, and the Empire Realty Company, either separately or jointly, executed to defendant Windsor Realty & Trust Company deeds purporting to convey to such company all the property recited in said agreement of settlement, which respondents had obligated themselves therein to convey to Harton, or to the said Windsor Realty & Trust Company, as the said Harton should require, and the title to all of said property now appears by the record in the office of the judge of probate of Jefferson county, to remain in the said Windsor Realty & Trust Company. It is alleged, further, that Harton had refused to pay him for his services as counselor and solicitor under the contract; that complainant had never compounded with him for the same, and that the deeds to the property were executed to the said Windsor Realty & Trust Company without orator's consent; and that orator has never consented to it being conveyed by respondents to anybody, even to said Harton, before orator's fee for his services should have been paid or otherwise secured to said orator than by the statutory lien in favor of attorneys at law; and that the said Windsor Realty & Trust Company is chargeable with full knowledge that orator has not been paid or settled with for his said fees, because Harton is and has always been president of said corporation, and said corporation is, as orator verily believes, a mere volunteer to the title of said property. The bill was afterwards amended by alleging that the suit was for money, among other things, and the prayer was amended by praying in the alternative that the conveyance of the lands under the direction of defendant Harton to defendant Windsor Realty & Trust Company, before orator's claim was satisfied, was a fraud against orator, and that for that reason the said Windsor Realty & Trust Company holds title to said land as a trustee to satisfy the claims of orator as a creditor of defendant. The substance of the agreement sufficiently appears.

Stokely, Scrivner & Dominick, of Birmingham, for appellants.

Henry Upson Sims, of Birmingham, for appellee.

McCLELLAN, J.

The appellee, an attorney at law and solicitor in equity, filed this bill, against...