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1 Johns. Ch. 22

In re Southwick

New York Court of Chancery

Decided May 13, 1814

New York Court of Chancery · decided 1814-05-13

DICKINSON and MITCHELL, solicitors, applied to the court, by petition, stating that they had procured a commission of lunacy to be sued out and executed in this case, and that A. Staples was appointed committee of the lunatic’s estate, and that they had done other business for and in behalf of the said committee.; that the lunatic had since been discharged from the operation of the commission, hut the disease returning, a new committee, upon a new commission, had again been…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1814-05-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1888

4 state decisions

2018141820183018401850186018701880decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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The Chancellor.

¶1The court does not, ordinarily, and of course, interfere to compel the payment of solicitors’ fees. In certain cases 'such interference may be requisite, as where the committee becomes insolvent, and the costs would be lost unless made a charge upon the fund. Such was the case ex parte Price, (2 Ves, 407.;) and in the'case also of Barnsley v. Powell, (Amb, 102.,) the Chancellor declared, that the solicitor should stand in the place of the committee, so far as to enjoy the benefit of the committee’s lien on the estate, as to the costs of a suit prosecuted for the lunatic. The solicitor has his remedy by suit, for fees, in this, as in other cases. If the committee was before the court, asking a settlement of his trust, and to be discharged from his responsibility, and from the bond which the court had taken, the court would, undoubtedly, require these costs and charges to be previously paid. Here are no special reasons assigned for-this summary aid of the court, and the solicitor must be left to his ordinary remedy.

¶2Motion denied.

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