Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Wells

• Decision Date: 26 June 1900
• Citation: 59 S.W. 1041
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. WELLS.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

59 S.W. 1041

ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. WELLS.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 26, 1900.

Error to circuit court, Lauderdale county; Thomas J. Flippin, Judge.

Action for injuries by W. D. Wells against the Illinois Central Railroad Company. From a judgment on the clerk's report on reference in favor of plaintiff's attorneys for their fees, defendant brings error. Reversed.

Fentress & Cooper, Draper & Rice, and Kirkpatrick & Turner, for plaintiff in error. Steele & Pierson, for defendant in error.

CALDWELL, J.

M. D. Wells sued the Illinois Central Railroad Company for $1,999, as damages for personal injuries which he alleged it negligently and wrongfully inflicted on him. After its demurrer was overruled the defendant filed a plea of not guilty. At the trial term the defendant presented a written paper showing that it had paid the plaintiff $100 in full compromise and settlement of his suit, and thereupon moved the court for an order of dismissal. This motion was resisted by Messrs. Thomas Steele and Blair Pierson, who brought the suit for the plaintiff and were his only attorneys of record; their resistance being made upon the ground that they had a lien on the plaintiff's cause of action for their reasonable fees, and that the $100 was paid to him without their consent. Instead of sustaining the defendant's motion to dismiss, the court, on the motion of the plaintiff's attorneys, referred the case to the clerk to ascertain what sum would be reasonable compensation for the services rendered the plaintiff by them. The clerk reported a joint fee of $50. The court confirmed that report over the exception of the defendant, and rendered judgment in favor of the attorneys and against the defendant for that amount. The defendant has brought the case to this court, and here filed numerous assignments of error; denying, in the first place, that plaintiff's attorneys ever had a lien, and asserting, in the second place, that, if they had one, they have not adopted a proper method of enforcing it. The claim of lien is rested on chapter 243 of the Acts of 1899, but the defendant challenges the constitutionality of that enactment on several points. The act is as follows:

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of the state of Tennessee, that attorneys of record who begin a suit in a court of record in this state shall have a lien upon the plaintiff's right of action from the date of the filing of the suit.

"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that any attorney who is employed to prosecute a suit that has already been brought in any court of record in this state shall have a lien upon the plaintiff's right of action from the date of his employment in the case: provided the record of the case will first be made to show such employment by notice upon the rule docket of such court, or a written memorandum filed with the papers in the case, or by notice served upon the defendant in the case.

"Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, that this act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

"Passed April 12, 1899."

Messrs. Steele and Pierson began the suit for the plaintiff, and were his sole attorneys of record; hence it is clear, under the first section of the act, that they had a statutory lien on his right of action from the commencement of the suit, if the statute is valid. We are unable to discover that any of the objections urged against the act make it unconstitutional. Whether it tends to encourage litigation, and thereby violates sound public policy, the court is not prepared to say; nor, indeed, is it allowable for the court to consider that question as in any manner affecting the constitutionality of the act. Under the organic division of the functions of government, the policy or impolicy of a given act is a matter for the final decision of the general assembly, as an essential part of its exclusive power of legislation, and the judiciary is precluded from entering that domain. All legislative authority is vested in the general assembly. Const. art. 2, § 3; Levee Dist. v. Dawson, 97 Tenn. 159, 36 S. W. 1041, 34 L. R. A. 725; Sutton v. State, 96 Tenn. 696, 36 S. W. 697, 33 L. R. A. 589; Henley v. State, 98 Tenn. 665, 41 S. W. 352, 1104.

It is true, as suggested, that the present act does not prescribe any method for the enforcement of the lien declared; yet that omission does not render the act unconstitutional, since there is no provision in the organic law requiring that acts granting new rights shall likewise provide new remedies. The statute would...