Payton v. Wheeler
| Decision Date | 25 August 1913 |
| Docket Number | (No. 5,032.) |
| Citation | 79 S.E. 81,13 Ga. App. 326 |
| Parties | PAYTON. v. WHEELER et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error from Superior Court, Haralson County; Price Edwards, Judge.
Action by A. J. Payton against J. C. Wheeler and others. Judgment for plaintiff. From an order giving an attorney of defendants a lien on the money in question, plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Griffith & Matthews, of Buchanan, for plaintiff in error.
W. P. Robinson, of Buchanan, for defendants in error.
It appears from the record that Wheeler had been accused of taking certain money from the person of Payton. Parker, the sheriff, arrested Wheeler, and found some money upon his person, and took possession of it. Payton brought an action against Wheeler and the sheriff for money had and received. After judgment by the magistrate in favor of Payton, and on appeal, Wheeler, by his attorney, perfected his plea by alleging that the money which had been taken from him by the sheriff was the property of his wife, placed in his hands by her instructions, to pay certain demands against her. The sheriff answered that he had the fund in dispute in his hands, but was merely holding it as trustee for whomsoever it might rightly belong to, and was ready to pay it over to the person whom the courts might adjudge to be the owner. At the trial on the appeal a written agreement, signed by the defendant Wheeler and his wife, to the effect that the plaintiff, Payton, should have the money which was in the hands of the sheriff, and that no further claim to the same would be made by them, was put in evidence; and Payton's counsel testified that one Johnson got Wheeler and his wife to sign the agreement, and brought it to him, and that the money was thereafter paid over to him, as attorney for the plaintiff, by the sheriff, under this agreement of Wheeler and Mrs. Wheeler. He further testified that he told Johnson he would not agree to assist Wheeler, who had been convicted of larceny, unless Payton consented, because he had represented Payton in the prosecution of Wheeler, and that he asked Johnson to see Wheeler's attorney, Robinson, and advise him as to the proposed agreement with Wheeler and his wife. It does not appear that Johnson ever saw Robinson. However, in a conversation between Griffith, as attorney for Payton, and Robinson, as attorney for Wheeler, Robinson stated, in effect, that his fee in the case was contingent, and that he was to have a half of the money if the Wheelers won the case. The settlement between Payton and the Wheelers had been agreed upon at that time. Robinson's statement on the trial of the...
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...be divested by any settlement or contract, it matters not by whom the settlement may have been made or attempted.’ Payton v. Wheeler, 13 Ga.App. 326, 328, 79 S.E. 81 (1913).” Howe & Assocs., P.C. v. Daniels, 274 Ga.App. 312, 314(1), 618 S.E.2d 42 (2005), aff'd 280 Ga. 803, 631 S.E.2d 356 (2......
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