Case ID: how-pr_56/html/0242-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SUPREME COURT.
    Andrew J. Perry, respondent, agt. True W. Rollins, appellant.
    
      Action hy cm attorney for services— Answer—generad denial a/nd an allegation that the servites have been fully paid for— Order of reference.
    
    
      It seems that an order of reference may be had in an action by an attorney for professional services. ,
    
      Qim'e. Is Marlin agt. Windsor' Motel Company (10 Man, 304) to be followed, or is a different rule to be established?
    
      First Department, General Term,
    
    
      October, 1878.
    This was an appeal from an order made at special term directing a reference to hear and determine the issues.
    The action was brought by plaintiff, as an attorney and counselor at law, for professional services rendered for defendant. The defendant’s answer is a general denial of the allegations in the complaint, and alleges that plaintiff rendered certain services for defendant and one Samuel Ward, as trustees for the bondholders of the Gold Valley Mining Company, and that he has been fully paid therefor. The order of reference was made upon the pleadings, the bilí of particulars consisting of about sixty items and an affidavit of plaintiff that the trial of the action would involve the examination of a long account.
    
      T. C. & Chas. G. Cronin, for the appellant.
    The trial of this action will not involve the examination of a long account. The plaintiff’s bill of particulars is not an account proper, in the legal sense of the term (Dickinson agt. Mitchell, 19 Abb., 286). Compulsory references are not matters of right, hut of judicial discretion, and the constitutional provision of the right to trial by jury cannot be too faithfully preserved. On the issues in this action, the defendant should have the right of submission to a jury, being for the professional services of a lawyer (Flanders agt. Odell, 16 Abb. [N. S.], 247; Martin agt. Windsor Hotel Co., 10 Hun, 304).
    
      A. J. Perry, plaintiff in person.
    There is no fact in this case which comes within the purview of any of the recent cases where references have been denied.
   The account is sufficiently established by the bill of particulars (Place agt. Cheeseborough, 4 Hun, 577). The bill of particulars contains upwards of sixty items involving labor on at least sixty different days, making a “long account” within, the judicial definition and meaning of that expression ( Continental Bank Note Co. agt. The Industrial Exhibition Co., 1 Hun, 118).

Present, Davis, P. J., Beady and Ingalls, JJ.

Order of reference affirmed; no opinion.