Court Opinion

ID: 9577851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:38:45.218954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:22.106516
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants propose a difference in fact between this case and Brumbelow, supra, to wit: in Brumbelow the plaintiff apparently placed no express restrictions upon his attorney’s authority to settle. But the holding in Brumbelow, though it exceeds its facts, clearly states that a settlement by an attorney is enforceable, and his authority is plenary, “unless it is limited by the client and that limitation is communicated to opposing parties. . . . Therefore ... in the absence of knowledge [by opposing party] of express restrictions . . . the client will be bound by the acts of his attorney within the scope of his apparent authority. . . .”
We note further that none of the authorities we cited, nor any we found, allowed that if there were no express restrictions the attorney had authority to settle. To the contrary, they all show it is unnecessary and redundant to require a client to place express restrictions on the attorney’s authority because mere retention of an attorney does not give him authority to compromise and that is why he does not have “apparent” authority. As we indicated in our opinion, as a matter of fact the public would “recoil in horror and deny it” if they were *415told their attorney could dispose of their case because they never told him not to.
Decided June 6, 1986
Rehearing denied June 19, 1986
Darryl R. Vandeford, for appellants.
E. Wycliffe Orr, Ellis Ray Brown, John S. D’Orazio, for appellee.

Motion for rehearing denied.