Case ID: mo_207/html/0235-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PADGETT, by Guardian, v. SMITH, Appellant.
    Division One,
    November 27, 1907.
    PARTITION: Attorney’s Fee: Services for Appeal. The motion for the allowance of attorney’s fees for services rendered by them in plaintiff’s behalf in the appellate court should he made in the circuit court.
    Motion to Tax Pee for Plaintiff’s Attorney.
    Motion dismissed.
    STATEMENT BY THE REPORTER.
    Suit was brought by Ervine P. Padgett, a minor, by her guardian, against James H. F. Smith, to establish a resulting trust in certain lands in the minor’s favor, and for partition of said lands between her and defendant. At the trial plaintiff prevailed, and the court rendered judgment establishing the trust and decreeing partition, and on the coming in of the commissioners’ report confirmed the same, and allowed plaintiff’s attorneys a fee of $350. Prom that final judgment" defendant appealed to the Supreme Court. The appeal was energetically prosecuted, and plaintiff’s attorneys filed extensive briefs in support of their client’s judgment, which was affirmed. [Padgett v. Smith, 206 Mo. 303, 205 Mo. 122.] Thereafter plaintiff’s attorneys filed the pending motion for an allowance of an additional attorney’s fee for their services rendered in this court, on the theory that, while such fee is contemplated by section 4422, Revised Statutes 1899, (1) the trial court had lost jurisdiction over the cause by the defendant’s appeal, (2) the trial court, at the time it allowed the attorneys a fee of $350, could not have foreseen that an appeal would be taken and, even if it had, it could not have estimated what would be a reasonable valuation for such expected services; and (3) the appeal was not brought by plaintiff, but by defendant, who alone is responsible for the ■ fact that sneh services became necessary to a proper protection of plaintiff’s rights.
   PER CURIAM:

We are of the opinion that the motion for allowance to plaintiff’s attorneys for compensation for services rendered by them in this court should be made in the circuit court that tried the cause, that that court has jurisdiction to hear evidence as to the nature and extent of the services and their reasonable value and to make a proper allowance therefor to be taxed as costs. This motion is, therefore, dismissed without prejudice to the rig’hts of the plaintiffs to file such a motion in the circuit court.