Case ID: njl_7/html/0005-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Eord, J. Kirkpatrick, O. J. Ford, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Overseers of the Poor of Hopewell against Overseers of Amwell.
    In pauper cases, the successful party may recover attorney’s fees, the same as is allowed by the fee bill in other cases ; and also reasonable counsel fees.
    The order of removal of the justices and of the Court of Quarter Sessions, were quashed by this court at the last term. (See 1 Hals. 169.) The attorney for Hopewell made out his bill of costs, and inserted therein the same charges for attorney’s fees in the Sessions and in the Supreme Court, as are allowed, in all civil cases, by the statute regulating fees, {Bem. Lanos 481,) such as—
    Retaining fee, warrant of attorney, copy and filing... $1 25
    Motion that appeal be entered, &c., and argument fee.......................................... 2 05
    Breviat and copy, and copy for counsel................. 68
    Attorney’s trial fee.......................................... 2 00
    Motion that hearing of appeal come on, and argument fee.................................................... 2 05
    Same charges for services in Supreme Court, with the additional charges of—
    *Motion that return be made to certiorari, and argument fee.................................................... $1 25
    Drawing reasons, copy, and filing........................ 1 08
    Notice of argument, copy, and service, and filing..... 73
    Motion for judgment, and argument fee................. 1 25
    There were also charges for counsel fee in the Sessions..................................................... 10 00
    And counsel fee in the Supreme Court.................. 20 00
    
      To these several items in the bill of costs, the counsel for Amwell, Mr. Bound, objected, and applied to this court to re-tax the bill, as by the fifth section of the act regulating fees (Rev. Laws 493.) they are required to do. Pie contended that under the twenty-eighth section of the act for the settlement and relief of the poor, (Rev. Laws 46.) only such costs and charges could be taxed as the justices thought reasonable and just; and that it did not authorize the taxation of the fees above enumerated.
    
      Ewing, for Hopewell,
    said that the practice as to these costs, had been settled in the case of Northampton v. /Stafford ; and that in drawing the present bill of costs, he had followed the bill which had been taxed in that case. He had examined the bill of costs on file from 1782 to 1818, and could find but two bills of costs in pauper cases, (and the reason, he presumed, was that the attorney did not file his bill, unless it was necessary to issue execution); but both those bills contained the same charges as the present bill; the one was in the case of the Township of Trenton v. Maidenhead, and the other Northampton v. Stafford. The words of the act are, “ reasonable expenses,” and under these words reasonable counsel fees have been allowed.
   Eord, J.

The practice in the Sessions has been to allow no taxed costs, according to the items of the fee bill. But fees have been allowed the attorney as counsel, and counsel fees have been allowed besides.

Kirkpatrick, O. J.

I do not think that the court could be governed by a more reasonable rule than the fee bill. Rev Laws 481. I am inclined to say that the bill should be allowed as drawn.

Rossell, J., concurred with the Chief Justice.

Ford, J.

Inasmuch as the bill in 1818 was settled in open court, I concur in allowing this bill as drawn.