Opinion ID: 1376005
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Contingent Fee Cases

Text: Foley claims that the court erred when it awarded Morse & Mowbray an interest in three contingency fee cases identified as Father Kenny, Lawyer Johnson, and Cynthia Gifford. In a similar case concerning a law firm dissolution, the California Court of Appeals ruled that every partner must account to the partnership for any benefit and hold as trustee for it any profits derived without the consent of the other partners from any transaction of the partnership or from any use of its property. Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman v. Cohen, 191 Cal.App.3d 1035, 237 Cal.Rptr. 14, 22-23 (1987). The court stated that failure to account properly was a burden of proof that rested with the fiduciary who had contravened duties enabling allocation and accounting. Id. 237 Cal.Rptr. at 23, 237 Cal.Rptr. 14. Foley, who was in a position to make the allocation, failed to do so. The most elementary conceptions of justice and public policy require that the wrongdoer shall bear the risk of the uncertainty which his own wrong has created. Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, 327 U.S. 251, 265, 66 S.Ct. 574, 580, 90 L.Ed. 652 (1946). Since Foley failed to bear his burden to account, we conclude that the trial court's rulings in favor of Morse & Mowbray with respect to the three contingency fee cases were not erroneous.