Wallace v. Franz, 9649.
| Decision Date | 02 October 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 9649.,9649. |
| Citation | 66 F.2d 457 |
| Parties | WALLACE v. FRANZ. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Lon O. Hocker, of St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
Jesse T. Friday, of St. Louis, Mo. (Allen McReynolds, of Carthage, Mo., on the brief), for appellee.
Before STONE and WOODROUGH, Circuit Judges, and MUNGER, District Judge.
This appeal is to review a decree fixing the amount of an attorney's fee and establishing the same as a lien upon certain property of the client. The trial court found from the evidence that the value of the attorney's services to his client was $26,000 and decreed a lien in that sum, less $4,500 already paid on account. The attorney prayed for $150,000 and prosecutes this appeal.
It appears that Ehrhardt W. Franz, the client appellee, is one of ten children whose father died testate in 1898, leaving a life estate in his property to the widow, who was the mother of the children, with remainder in equal parts to the children. The widow turned over the life estate, together with property owned in her own right, to Gustavus A. Buder and Gustav A. Franz as trustees for certain purposes. The estate included, among other things, some shares of the stock of the American Arithmometer Company, which evolved into 282,500 shares of stock in the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, much of the increase coming by way of stock dividends. This stock is a listed stock which rose on the exchanges to a very great value, and although it shrank after the crash in 1929, is still worth a large sum of money. In the fall of 1923 the appellee employed the appellant to advise him as to his rights as a remainderman in the estate of his father. The appellee had prosecuted litigation against the trustees in the state court in 1909 and it had been adjudicated in that litigation that appellee was a remainderman as to his father's estate, but it was uncertain whether the additions to that estate by way of stock dividends were, in law, a part of the corpus of the estate or were income. Appellee had borrowed money from the trustees and had received other sums of money from them, and had signed various papers of which he had no copies, and feared that he had surrendered all of his rights as a remainderman to his mother, the life tenant. After investigation and conferences the attorney advised a bill in equity in the federal court to quiet appellee's title as a remainderman and to settle that the stock dividends were corpus and not income; and thereafter, in the spring of 1924, the attorney filed such a bill and prosecuted the suit to final hearing in District Court. The trial court dismissed the bill for want of necessary parties defendant. The attorney prosecuted an appeal to this Court of Appeals Franz v. Buder, 11 F.(2d) 854, 858, where it was again held that there was a failure of necessary parties; but on motion to modify, it was directed that amendment be permitted and necessary parties be brought in. The attorney caused the bill to be amended in the District Court and the necessary parties brought in. After the decision dismissing the bill, the trustees brought an action in the state court for the purpose of having it adjudicated that the stock dividends were income accruing to the life estate of the mother and were not corpus of the estate. The attorney applied in the federal court for an injunction against the prosecution of the action in the state court. The same was denied by the federal district judge but on appeal to this court injunction was allowed. Franz v. Franz, 15 F.(2d) 797. Certiorari to the Supreme Court was applied for, resisted in a brief filed by the attorney, and certiorari denied by the Supreme Court. Buder v. Franz, 273 U. S. 756, 47 S. Ct. 459, 71 L. Ed. 876. Thereafter, there was a trial in the federal District Court on the merits, resulting favorably to the appellee. An appeal...
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In re Buder
...Trust Co. v. Buder, 47 F.2d 507; Franz v. Mississippi Valley Trust Co., 51 F.2d 1047; Fiske v. State of Missouri, 62 F.2d 150; Wallace v. Franz, 66 F.2d 457, 68 F.2d Fiske v. State of Missouri, 69 F.2d 683; Wallace v. Fiske, 80 F.2d 897; Fiske v. Wallace, 117 F.2d 149; In re Franz Estate, 3......
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In re Franz' Estate
...that Wallace was allowed $ 26,000 by the Federal court, which was assessed against his client Ehrhardt W. Franz. [See Wallace v. Franz, 66 F.2d 457.] that later Wallace was allowed $ 10,000 against each of the six and two-thirds interest, which totaled about $ 66,000; that Earl F. Nelson wa......
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In re Franz' Estate
... ... Buder v. Franz, ... 27 F.2d 101; Fiske v. State of Mo., 62 F.2d 153; ... Fiske v. State of Mo., 69 F.2d 684; Wallace v ... Fiske, 80 F.2d 908. The Franz estate litigation in the ... Federal Courts in which the title of the respondents was ... adjudicated was an ... ...
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Fiske v. Buder
...47 F.2d 507; Mississippi Valley Trust Co. v. Franz, 8 Cir., 51 F.2d 1047; Fiske v. State of Missouri, 8 Cir., 62 F.2d 150; Wallace v. Franz, 8 Cir., 66 F.2d 457; Wallace v. Franz, 8 Cir., 68 F.2d 313; Fiske v. State of Missouri, 8 Cir., 69 F.2d 683; Wallace v. Fiske, 8 Cir., 80 F.2d 897, 10......