Title: Ashley v. Eisele

State: arkansas

Issuer: Arkansas Supreme Court

Document:

445 S.W.2d 76 (1969) Courdia Altene ASHLEY, Appellant, v. G. Thomas EISELE, Appellee. No. 5-4928. Supreme Court of Arkansas. October 6, 1969. *77 Guy H. Jones and Phil Stratton, Conway, for appellant. Lester & Shults, Little Rock, for appellee. JONES, Justice. This appeal by Mrs. Ashley is from a summary judgment in favor of her former attorney, G. Thomas Eisele, and grows out of litigation commenced in the Pulaski County Circuit Court wherein Mrs. Ashley alleged excessive attorney's fee and damage because of wrong legal advice intentionally given her by Mr. Eisele in connection with her property rights in a divorce action. The divorce action out of which the present litigation arose was concluded in 1964, and the pertinent background facts of that litigation are these: In 1962, Mrs. Ashley employed Mr. Eisele to represent her in a divorce action against her husband. Mr. Eisele filed a petition in chancery court for Mrs. Ashley alleging general indignities as grounds for divorce and praying for the custody of the four minor children; for a determination and award of property rights; for an award of attorney's fee and court costs. Immediately after the petition was filed, Mrs. Ashley also engaged the services of attorney H. B. Stubblefield, who associated with Mr. Eisele and they both represented Mrs. Ashley throughout the litigation. Mr. Ashley counterclaimed for *78 a divorce and alleged adultery as one of his grounds. A property settlement and separation agreement was executed by Mr. and Mrs. Ashley on February 17, 1964, and was approved by the chancellor in a divorce decree entered on Mrs. Ashley's complaint on February 19, 1964. Under the agreement and decree, Mrs. Ashley was paid $15,000 in cash, together with real and personal property valued by her attorneys at $15,000 but valued by Mrs. Ashley at less than half that amount, and Mrs. Ashley was awarded custody of their four minor children. Mrs. Ashley paid her attorneys $6,000 as attorneys' fees and an additional fee of $3,000 was awarded against Mr. Ashley. On January 31, 1968, Mrs. Ashley filed her complaint against Mr. Eisele in the case at bar alleging that she had only recently learned that Mr. Eisele had wrongfully and intentionally advised her as to her property rights in the divorce action; that she was entitled to a property settlement in the amount of $100,000, rather than the $15,000 awarded to her; that she only agreed to accept the $15,000 in property settlement because of the willful, intentional, wrongful and erroneous legal advice given to her by Mr. Eisele while he represented her and while he knew that there was a conflict between her interest and the interests of other parties with whom Eisele became involved. Mrs. Ashley also alleged that the $6,000 fee charged by her attorneys, and paid by her, was unconscionable, exorbitant and excessive. She prayed judgment for $6,000 paid in attorneys' fees, for $85,000 damages she suffered because of the property settlement and for $25,000 punitive damages. Eisele filed an answer admitting his employment and representation, along with Stubblefield, as alleged in the complaint. He admitted that a written property settlement agreement was entered into between Mr. and Mrs. Ashley and a divorce was granted to Mrs. Ashley. He denied the other allegations. Interrogatories were directed to, and answered by, Mrs. Ashley. The depositions of Mrs. Ashley, Mr. Ashley and Mrs. Ashley's sister, Mrs. Earline Keltner, were taken and on August 26, 1968, Eisele filed a motion for summary judgment on the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and the affidavit of Eisele in support of his motion. On September 5, 1968, the circuit court entered an order setting Eisele's motion for hearing on September 9, 1968, and on the date of hearing Mrs. Ashley filed a response to the motion for summary judgment stating that justiciable issues did exist and that Eisele was not entitled to a summary judgment. No counter-affidavits were filed on behalf of Mrs. Ashley, but at the hearing on the motion her attorney offered her oral testimony in lieu of affidavits. The trial court refused to hear Mrs. Ashley's oral testimony in lieu of affidavits and on this issue the record recites as follows: The trial court granted Eisele's motion for summary judgment and Mrs. Ashley relies on the following points for reversal: We have examined the entire record and we have had no difficulty at all in arriving at the conclusion that the trial court was correct in finding that there was no justiciable issue presented as to Eisele willfully, intentionally, wrongfully or erroneously giving Mrs. Ashley bad legal advice. We also agree that there was no justiciable issue that Eisele acted in bad faith or misinformed, or misrepresented to Mrs. Ashley her rights under the laws of Arkansas, or that Eisele had any conflict of interests in his representation of Mrs. Ashley. As a matter of fact the record is to the contrary. Both parties were represented by competent counsel in the divorce action, and it is obvious from the record that the attorneys on both sides were thoroughly familiar with the provision of Ark.Stat.Ann. § 34-1214 (Repl.1962), which provides as follows: In the light of this statute and with the issues joined on petition and counter petition, the record is clear that Mrs. Ashley's attorneys settled down to negotiate with Mr. Ashley's attorneys for an agreed property settlement on the best terms possible. They threatened to prove assets and income far in excess of that reported for income tax purposes and Mr. Ashley's attorneys countered all proposals with the assurance that Mr. Ashley had ample grounds for a divorce on his counterclaim, and that they would have no difficulty in presenting proof which would entitle him to a divorce. The attorneys were still deadlocked in their negotiations on January 5, 1967, when Mrs. Ashley, according to her own deposition, was arrested, along with a nineteen year old young man, while both of them were naked in the young man's automobile parked on a deadend road off No. 10 Highway. She contended that she had been drugged and "framed" and there are no indications that her attorneys did not believe her. There are indications, however, that her attorneys were not so sure that the chancellor would believe her, for on January 30, 1964, Mr. Eisele wrote to Mrs. Ashley, in part, as follows: Mrs. Ashley was represented by two attorneys, but Mr. Eisele is the only defendant in this lawsuit. Both attorneys advised Mrs. Ashley as to her rights under the laws of Arkansas, and it is obvious that her property rights under the record in this case, would depend upon whether she was granted a divorce on her alleged grounds or Mr. Ashley was granted a divorce on his own allegations. From the uncontroverted facts in the record before us, including Mrs. Ashley's own admissions on interrogatories and her testimony on deposition, it would appear that Mrs. Ashley's attorneys may have given her very good advice in the property settlement they recommended, and certainly there is no evidence that Mr. Eisele gave her bad advice, or that she sustained any damage by following the advice given. In Mr. Eisele's affidavit for summary judgment he stated that he had not even met the parties involved in the alleged conflict of interest at the time his representation of Mrs. Ashley was concluded and this statement is not controverted. The alleged excessiveness of the attorneys' fee gives us more difficulty. The complaint alleges that the attorneys' fee of $6,000 was excessive and unconscionable. Mrs. Ashley testified on her deposition as follows: This testimony is not controverted but is more or less confirmed by Mr. Eisele in his affidavit for summary judgment, as follows: Mr. Stubblefield was one of Mrs. Ashley's attorneys and shared in charging the fee as well as collecting it. He is not a party to this lawsuit, but his affidavit that the fee was reasonable does not take that item out of the realm of justiciable controversy. The appellee argues on appeal that the statute of limitations, Ark.Stat.Ann. § 37-206 (Repl.1962), bars the causes of action set out in the complaint and that summary judgment is appropriate under our decision in Norwood v. Allen, 240 Ark. 232, 398 *82 S.W.2d 684. The statute of limitations was specifically pleaded in Norwood and was not pleaded at all in the case at bar. In the early case of Western Union Telegraph Co. v. State, 82 Ark. 309, 101 S.W. 748, this court said: The statute of limitations is not mentioned in the pleadings in the case at bar, but was only first mentioned in Eisele's memorandum in support of motion for summary judgment. It appears from that memorandum that if the statute of limitations was relied on at all, it was expressly waived as to part of the cause of action in the following language: The nearest Mr. Eisele comes to pleading the statute of limitations as to the claim on attorneys' fee is also contained in his memorandum in support of motion for summary judgment in the following language: It would appear from the face of the record that the statute of limitations might have been a good defense had it been pleaded and nothing offered in the way of evidence that the statute had been tolled or its operation suspended. If Eisele did not rely on the statute of limitations, a justiciable issue was presented on the attorney fee issue. If the statute was relied on, it was not pleaded and Mrs. Ashley had a right to assume that it was waived. If the statute had been pleaded and relied on in support of a motion for summary judgment, then Mrs. Ashley would have had a right to plead in controversion any facts or circumstances which might have tolled the statute of limitations. The appellant poses two questions under her first point: We do not answer the first question as a hard and fast rule of law to be applied in all cases, but we answer the second question in the negative and that also disposes of the first question under the facts in this case. Our summary judgment statute, Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 29-201 to 29-211 (Repl.1962), is an adoption of federal rule of civil procedure, Rule No. 56, and its provisions will not be set out again here. The object of procedure for summary judgment is not to determine an issue, but to determine whether there is an issue to be tried (Byrnes v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of N. Y. 9 Cir., 217 F.2d 497). One of the objects *83 of the summary judgment is to dispose of litigation on motion when the facts are not disputed and the law can be applied to them, thus avoiding the expense and time of hearing witnesses at a formal trial. Consequently, to permit oral testimony in lieu of the more convenient affidavit would tend to defeat one of the purposes of summary judgment. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to hear the testimony of Mrs. Ashley in lieu of her affidavit, because Mrs. Ashley had already verified her complaint, answered interrogatories and given her deposition under oath. All this was in the record and was the basis for the motion in the first place. In 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 225, beginning on page 420 is found the following: In MacLean v. Parkwood, D.C., 247 F. Supp. 188, the court did permit oral testimony in lieu of affidavit in support of a motion for summary judgment, but in doing so the court said: Mrs. Ashley was not required to file affidavits at all under the statute and it was not her failure to do so that entitled Eisele to the summary judgment. It was the lack of a justiciable issue on the facts, including those established by the affidavits that were filed that entitled Eisele to the summary judgment. The only effect of Mrs. Ashley's failure to file counter-affidavits was to leave the facts set out in Mr. Eisele's affidavit uncontroverted, and to be accepted as true, for the purposes of his motion. The office of counter-affidavits in summary judgment proceeding has been recited in many cases as set out in the annotations in U.S.C.A., Title 28, Rule 56, p. 366, some of which are as follows: It is true, as argued by Mrs. Ashley under her second point, that her verified complaint alleges that Mr. Eisele willfully, intentionally and deliberately gave erroneous legal advice to Mrs. Ashley, but this allegation is of little assistance to her on motion for summary judgment for the simple reason that facts upon which the allegation is predicated and as brought out and established by answers to interrogatories, depositions, and affidavits, are not in dispute. They simply do not sustain the allegation that the legal advice given Mrs. Ashley was erroneous or that Mrs. Ashley suffered any damages because she acted upon it. The summary judgment of the trial court is affirmed, except as it relates to the alleged excessiveness of the attorneys' fee. This cause is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings on that issue consistent with this opinion. It may well be that the issue can be determined upon the basis of the defense of limitations if it be found that this defense has not been waived or that it was not tolled during the period prior to the filing of this action. If not waived, Mrs. Ashley should be given an opportunity to show facts which would toll the statute. Affirmed in part and remanded. BYRD, J., disqualified. HOLT, J., not participating.