Opinion ID: 1246954
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 21

Heading: contingent fee contract bars recovery in quantum meruit

Text: 15. Although we have approved of the attorneys' fees already allowed by the trial court, we are allowing defendant no attorneys' fees on this appeal. Since contingent fee contracts in divorce actions are contrary to public policy they must be eradicated from our practice. We therefore expressly overrule the two Klampe v. Klampe cases, 137 Minn. 227, 163 N.W. 295, and 145 Minn. 404, 177 N.W. 629, insofar as they permit an attorney who is a party to a contingent fee contract in a divorce action to recover what his services are reasonably worth. Since the illegality of the contingent fee contract rests on the ground that it may govern a lawyer's action in a manner which thwarts public policy, the taint of illegality permeates the entire lawyer-client relationship in a divorce action so that every objection to permitting a recovery on the express agreement applies with equal force to an attempted recovery in quantum meruit. McCarthy v. Santangelo, 137 Conn. 410, 78 A. (2d) 240. We allow the defendant, however, one-half of her necessary costs and disbursements upon this appeal. We find no basis for a new trial. The judgment and order of the trial court are affirmed. Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE THOMAS GALLAGHER took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.