Case ID: paige-ch_4/html/0120-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Chancellor.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lampman sv. Hand & Whaley.
    Upon an appeal from a vice chancellor to the chancellor, retaining fees for solicitor and counsel are proper charges.
    So also is a charge for abbreviating the pleadings and proofs for the use of counsel on the appeal.
    But a charge against the adverse party for making copies of the pleadings and proofs for the use of counsel, will not be allowed.
    July 10.
    This was an appeal from the decision of the taxing officer in reference to the taxation of the costs on an appeal to the chancellor from a decree of the vice chancellor. The items objected to, but allowed by the taxing officer, were a retaining fee for the solicitor and counsel on the appeal, and the charges for copies of the pleadings and case for counsel, and for abbreviating the pleadings and proofs for the use of counsel.
    T. Jenkins, for the appellant.
    
      S. Beardsley, for the respondents.
   The Chancellor.

Upon an appeal to the court fot- the correction of errors, from a decree or order of the chancellor, retaining fees to solicitor and counsel are allowed, although the solicitor and counsel may be, and generally are, the same who were engaged in the cause in the court below. (See 13th Rule of C. of Errors.) An appeal from a decree of a vice chancellor to the chancellor, is a new proceeding; as much so as an appeal from a decree or order of the chancellor to the court for the correction of errors. I can see no good reason why a retaining fee should not be allowed in the one case as well as in the other. And I believe it has been the uniform practice of the taxing officers to allow the same on an appeal from a decree of a vice chancellor. The retaining fees were therefore properly allowed in the present case.

The respondents were not entitled to charge the adverse party with the copies of the pleadings and case for the use of counsel; but the item for abbreviating the pleadings and proofs, for the use of counsel on the appeal, was properly allowed. (De Caters v. La Farge, 2 Paige’s Rep. 411.) The charges for copies of the bill, answer, and case, amounting together to the sum of $12,11, must be deducted from the bill as taxed; and neither party is to have costs on this application.