Title: Shirley v. Mazzone

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

591 So. 2d 469 (1991)
Mary Lena SHIRLEY, et al.
v.
Miriam Ellen Hall MAZZONE and Robert F. Prince, as Successor Executor of the Estate of Jesse Carl Hall, Deceased.
Melody D. GENSON, as Trustee of the Bankrupt Estate of H. Newell Hall
v.
Miriam Ellen Hall MAZZONE and Robert F. Prince, as Successor Executor of the Estate of Jesse Carl Hall, Deceased.
F. Mary HALL
v.
Miriam Ellen Hall MAZZONE and Robert F. Prince, as Successor Executor of the Estate of Jesse Carl Hall, Deceased.
1901348, 1901463 and 1901464.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 13, 1991.
W. Kenneth Gibson and W. Donald Bolton, Jr., Fairhope, for appellants.
Robert D. Segall and E. Terry Brown of Copeland, Franco, Screws & Gill, P.A., Montgomery, for appellant Melody D. Genson, as trustee, etc.
Allan R. Chason of Chason & Chason, P.C., Bay Minette, for appellees.
STEAGALL, Justice.
The sole issue in this case is whether the award of attorney fees to the plaintiffs' counsel out of the proceeds of a sale of certain real property in Baldwin County was erroneous. The history of this case is protracted and involves three prior appeals *470 to this Court. See Cherry v. Mazzone, 568 So. 2d 799 (Ala.1990); Hall v. Mazzone, 540 So. 2d 1353 (Ala.1988); and Hall v. Mazzone, 486 So. 2d 408 (Ala.1986). The parties pertinent to this appeal, and their respective interests, are as follows:
On November 27, 1984, Miriam Hall Mazzone sued Mary Hall, Hines Newell Hall, and Sarah Hall Shirley in Baldwin Circuit Court, seeking a partition in kind of the property or, in the alternative, a sale for division.[1] On December 28, 1987, Mazzone secured a judgment against Mary Hall and Hines Hall in Tuscaloosa Circuit Court in the amount of $416,868.44 in a suit by Mazzone concerning their handling, as original executors, of the estate of her father, Jesse Hall. Mazzone amended her Baldwin County complaint on January 29, 1988, alleging that certain conveyances by Mary and Hines were fraudulent and seeking to have them set aside. After a hearing on the fraudulent conveyance portion of Mazzone's complaint, the trial court entered a judgment in her favor on December 21, 1988, and set aside the subject conveyances. On July 3, 1989, the trial court determined that the real estate at issue could not be partitioned in kind and ordered a private sale. The trial court also held that Mazzone was entitled to use the Tuscaloosa judgment as a set-off against her bid to purchase the interests of Mary Hall and Hines Hall. This Court affirmed that judgment in Cherry v. Mazzone, 568 So. 2d 799 (Ala.1990).
In its final judgment of April 5, 1991, concerning the sale of the property, the trial court provided as follows regarding the fees to which Mazzone's attorneys were entitled:
Four days later, the trial court entered an order in which it recited its reasons for awarding the fee, based on Peebles v. Miley, 439 So. 2d 137 (Ala.1983), and Irons v. Le Sueur, 487 So. 2d 1352 (Ala.1986), and *471 reviewed the 12 factors enumerated in those cases. In that order, the trial court stated, in part:
L.D. Owen, as successor administrator of the estate of Sarah Shirley; Melody Genson, as bankruptcy trustee of the estate of Hines Hall; Mary Hall; Mary Lena Shirley; George Michael Shirley; and Judy Elizabeth Shirley appeal from the trial court's judgment, arguing that the attorney fee awarded is excessive, because, they contend, it violates Ala.Code 1975, § 34-3-60. That section reads:
The appellants argue that the trial court did not follow completely the mandate of Irons v. Le Sueur, supra, at 1359, that attorney fees awarded under § 34-3-60 must be "on the basis of, and solely for, the benefits inuring to the common estate and to the tenants in common and not involving controversy as to respective rights or interests of individual tenants in common." (Citations omitted.) Specifically, they contend that the major portion of Ollinger's efforts in the case was expended in securing the Tuscaloosa judgments against Mary Hall and Hines Hall and that a significant portion of the efforts of Allan Chason, of the Chason & Chason firm, was spent securing the fraudulent conveyances judgment on Mazzone's behalf, as well as in the collection of that judgment, and that those efforts did not inure to the benefit of all of the tenants in common.
Chason testified at the hearing regarding the amount of attorney fees to be awarded:
Chason also testified that he spent about 100 to 110 hours on the fraudulent conveyance part of the case and that his brother, John, and their secretary, Lilly Middleton, spent a total of about 37 hours on the fraudulent conveyance aspect alone. When Genson asked Allan Chason about his efforts in that regard, he responded:
It also appears from the trial court's order and from Ollinger's testimony that Ollinger will receive some portion of the fee, although his major contribution to the case was in obtaining the judgments against Mary Hall and Hines Hall.
Although the trial court considered each of the 12 factors enumerated in Peebles, supra, and Irons, supra, and stated in its initial order that the services Chason & Chason and Thomas Ollinger rendered in this case were "for the common benefit of the parties hereto," we find from our review of the record that Allan Chason's and Thomas Ollinger's representation of Mazzone was, at least in part, adversarial in nature and that it inured to the benefit of fewer than all of the tenants in common. While we recognize that the trial court has great discretion in awarding attorney fees in a case of this type and that attorneys should be reasonably and justly remunerated for their efforts rendered for the "common benefit" of the parties, it appears from the facts of this case that not all of the attorneys' efforts were expended for the benefit of all the parties involved. Consequently, the judgment of the trial court is reversed and this case is remanded in order for the trial court to determine and consider precisely what representation by Mazzone's attorneys in fact benefited all of the tenants in common and to adjust its original award accordingly.
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, ALMON and INGRAM, JJ., concur.
HOUSTON, J., concurs specially.
HOUSTON, Justice (concurring specially).
I would affirm an award of ten per cent (10%) of the sale price as an attorney fee upon the appellees' agreeing to remit the balance of the attorney fee awarded from the common fund.
Alabama Code 1975, § 34-3-60. "The common benefit is in bringing about a division of the lands through a judicial sale, so that each of the joint owners can have and enjoy his own." Dent v. Foy, 214 Ala. 243, 248, 107 So. 210, 215 (1925). There was no evidence before the trial court to contradict the evidence that for more than 30 years in cases involving sales for division, attorney fees had been based on the value of the property and not on an hourly rate and that the minimum fee in Baldwin County in sale-for-division cases was 10% of the sale price.
*473 If the attorneys for the appellees feel that additional sums are owed for services rendered in this matter, they could be recovered from their clients, the individuals for whom the services were rendered, if this did not conflict with the attorney-client employment contract.
There is no question that the attorneys performed many services not normally required in an action for a partition of property or a sale for division; however, I am persuaded that most of this extra work, if not all of it, was for the benefit of some rather than all of the joint owners of the property sold. In Irons v. Le Sueur, 487 So. 2d 1352, 1359 (Ala.1986), I acknowledged the perseverance of the attorney for the plaintiffs in keeping the case in court and getting it to trial in light of the fact that "[t]he defendants obtained continuance after continuance for the purposes of giving birth, sustaining life, recovering from injuries sustained in a car crash, and lecturing at a legal seminar." However, in Irons v. Le Sueur, all of the extra effort of the attorney for the plaintiffs was to bring about the division of the property and to distribute to each his own, a common benefit.
[1]  Sarah Hall Shirley died on February 26, 1986, and her estate was substituted as a defendant. In addition, Robert Prince, as successor executor of the estate of Jesse Carl Hall, who had died in 1970, was added as a plaintiff in 1988. All subsequent references to "Mazzone" in this opinion will refer to Robert Prince and Miriam Mazzone collectively.