Court Opinion

ID: 9848650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:24:21.464812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:33.816677
License: Public Domain

Hawkins, Justice,
dissenting. Where, as in this case, a contract dated October 8, 1946, entered into between the Irwins and a partnership composed of lawyers and accountants, provided that the partnership would “represent” the Irwins “in connection with” certain proposed Federal income tax assessments, for a “retainer” fee of $7,500, the payment of a stipulated per diem and expenses for “each accountant engaged in examining your records in connection with your tax case,” and a contingent fee of seven and one-half percent of any reduction in the assessment which might be secured “to be paid upon final settlement of your tax case,” and simultaneously therewith, and bearing the same date thereof, a power of attorney was executed by the *8Irwins to “Sykes H. Young and Peter J. Troy of Young & Garber, Certified Public Accountants, Atlanta, Georgia,, and L. L. Stapleton, of Decatur, Georgia, as his [their] true and lawful agents and attorneys in fact and af law to represent them in connection with a proposed additional assessment of Federal income for the taxable calendar years of 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945, with full power of substitution and revocation,” in which “The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, his subordinates and agents, are hereby authorized and requested to furnish the said agents and attorneys of the undersigned [Irwins] with copies of any returns, protests, claims, reports or other papers connected with said matters, and to disclose to said attorneys any and all information in their possession, in connection with said matters,” such contract was not ambiguous, and its construction should not have been submitted to a jury, but it should have been construed by the court as creating the relationship of client and attorney at law. “The construction of a contract is a question of law for the court” (Code § 20-701), and “the whole contract should be looked to in arriving at the construction of any part” (Code § 20-704 (4)); and “several instruments made at the same time are to be construed together as parts of one contract, where it is necessary to carry into effect the agreement and intention of the parties.” McCreary v. Gewinner, 103 Ga. 528, 533 (29 S. E. 960).
Applying the foregoing principles of law to the contract in this case, it was invalid. Code § 9-401 et seq.; Boykin v. Hopkins, 174 Ga. 511 (162 S. E. 796); Code § 9-615. Therefore I dissent from the rulings of the majority in the second and third divisions of the opinion and from the judgment of affirmance.
I am .authorized to say that Mr. Chief Justice Duckworth and Mr. Justice Candler concur in this dissent.