Timberlake v. Crosby

• Decision Date: 18 January 1889
• Parties: TIMBERLAKE v. CROSBY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

16 A. 896

81 Md. 249

TIMBERLAKE

v. CROSBY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

January 18, 1889.

On motion to set aside verdict.

Action by F. E. Timberlake against Eli Crosby, for professional services and disbursements. Verdict for plaintiff.

J. C. Holman and P. A. Sawyer, for plaintiff. W. Fred P. Fogg, for defendant.

WALTON, J. The plaintiff has obtained a verdict of $107.50, for a balance which he claims is due him for professional services and disbursements. We are forced to the conclusion that this verdict is clearly wrong, and must be set aside. Lawyers, like other professional men, are required to possess and exercise a reasonable amount of knowledge and skill. And when a lawyer is employed to assist in the collection of a debt, and, through ignorance of a plain and well-settled rule of law, he makes 20 writs when only one is necessary, he cannot recover for the writs, nor for term fees, in the suits thus unnecessarily commenced. To hold otherwise would place ignorance at a premium, and knowledge at a discount. It appears that the plaintiff was employed to make one trustee writ against 19 joint debtors, and that he made it, and delivered it to the creditor, and that the latter caused it to be served on the 19 defendants, and on the Franklin & Megantic Railroad Company, as their trustee; and that several days afterwards, without instructions from his client, and without seeing him, the plaintiff made 19 more writs and had them served,—that is, he sued each one of the 19 joint debtors in a separate action. His excuse for so doing is that he was not certain that he "could hold their several accounts against the railroad on their joint liability." This excuse is not satisfactory. It is a familiar rule of law that in a suit against joint debtors the property of each may be attached; and it was decided in Smith v. Cahoon, 37 Me. 281, that, "in a suit against joint debtors, a person holding goods, effects, or credits of either of them may be held as trustee." The marginal note of this decision, which we have quoted, is copied into the Maine Digest under the title of "Trustee Process," and the sub-title of "When the Trustee will be Charged." The decision is also cited on the margin of the Revised Statutes opposite the chapter relating to "Trustee Process," under the title of "When Charged." And it seems to us that by a search of 10 or 15 minutes the plaintiff could have found this decision, and thus removed his uncertainty; and that to remain...