Court Opinion

ID: 9704976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:53:31.953663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:07.014716
License: Public Domain

Flory, District Judge,
dissenting.
There are two items allowed in the final report of the administratrix which I cannot agree should be allowed as credits. These are the items of $40, listed as costs in the district court in Minahan v. Waldo, and $218.52 shown as paid to Arthur Waldeman on his claim but which was, in fact, paid to an attorney and has never been received by Arthur Waldeman. In addition to the above items, it seems to me that the attorney’s fee of $222.08, deducted by the attorney for the estate for the collection of the Waldo note, is entirely unreasonable and was an unnecessary dissipation of the funds of an insolvent estate.
The Waldo note was in the amount of $700 and drew a usurious rate of interest on its face. Waldo had admitted owing the principal of the note before any suit was commenced and had left a check for $700 with the county judge before suit was commenced in the district court. The attorney for the estate knew, or should have known, that only the face amount could be collected. He admitted on cross-examination that the check for $700 was in the hands of the county judge to be turned over to him, yet he refused to accept it because he had incurred $11.25 costs in the county court. Instead of paying these costs and collecting the note he dismissed the case, paid the costs, and filed a case in the district court thus incurring additional costs, and later took the $700 in full settlement of the judgment obtained in the district court.
The attorney for the estate, on cross-examination, stated that he knew the $700 check was in the hands of the county judge for him, and then this question was asked: “Then the only reason yoú dismissed the case in the county court, and filed it over in the district court, was because of the $11.00 court costs?” (Answer) “Yes, *91I didn’t think the estate should be taxed for those $11.25.”
I cannot agree that this expenditure in attorney fees and court costs of $262.08 is reasonable when the $700 note could have been collected by the payment of $11.25. Neither can I agree that it complies with the standard set forth in the majority opinion that: “If in the exercise of sound reason under the circumstances, it should be concluded by an ordinary, prudent, and cautious man, necessary for the best interest of the trust to act as the representative did, then his action should be approved by allowing the expenditures caused thereby in his final account even though subsequent developments indicate the action was unnecessary or ill-advised.”
In regard to the allowance of the payment of $218.52 to an attorney on the Arthur Waldeman claim, the attorney to whom the money was paid testified that he had never seen Mr. Waldeman and would not know him if he saw him; that he had not talked to Waldeman; and that Waldeman had not employed him. Apparently, from the record, Waldeman had never been in court with this attorney and had never signed any pleadings, and there was nothing except the attorney’s statement that he represented Waldeman up to the time this check was delivered to the attorney. It is quite significant in this connection that on the hearing on the claims in the county court, the attorney now claiming to represent Waldeman dictated the stipulation allowing the Connors, Ernst, and Waldeman claims. That stipulation, Exhibit No. 4, states only that he is appearing for Delia Ernst. Also, in the “Appearances” at the beginning of the hearing (Exhibit No. 4) this attorney is listed only as attorney for Delia Ernst, and no appearance is shown for Arthur Waldeman.