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220 S.C. 90

66 S.E.2d 629

Machado v. Machado

Supreme Court of South Carolina

Decided August 31, 1951

Supreme Court of South Carolina · decided 1951-08-31

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The amount was within the judicial discretion of the court, and, in fixing that amount, the trial court could proceed upon its own knowledge of the value of the * * * services.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including MacHado v. MacHado

Relies on Pelzer v. Ragsdale · Ex Parte Robinson · Hertzog v. Spartanburg Bonded Warehouses, Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1951-08-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently September 2011 · most notably Nienow v. Nienow (1977), McLaughlin v. McLaughlin (1964)

33 state decisions

1501951196019701980199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Tayeor, Justice

¶1(dissenting).

¶2I am in agreement with the opinion, as prepared by Mr. Justice Oxner, except that portion which disposes of Question 5 disallowing $1,500.00 counsel fee for respondent’s counsel. With this I do not agree. This litigation has been long and tedious, present counsel being the last of three to represent appellant. Numerous appearances were made, including one before a justice of this Court. Counsel has been forced to litigate constantly and aggressively, meanwhile suffering humiliation and abuse so vicious that the appellant was fined therefor as being in contempt of court. The learned Circuit Judge set the fee at $1,500.00. “The amount was within the judicial discretion of the court, and, in fixing that amount, the trial court could proceed upon its own knowledge of the value of the … services.” Ex parte Robinson, 196 S. C. 186, 12 S. E. (2d) 701, 704.

¶3This Court has long recognized that the Trial Judge is in a more advantageous position to pass upon the reasonableness of attorney’s fees in matters litigated before him. In the instant case, respondent’s counsel had, it has been said, the laboring oar in bringing this contested matter to a successful conclusion. This, as Mr. Justice Fishburne, in the case of Hertzog v. Spartanburg Bonded Warehouses, 184 S. C. 378, 192 S. E. 397, pointed out, is no small achievement, and while this Court will never stand for extortionate *106or unreasonable fees, the payment of adequate and reasonable fees has always been upheld. See Pelzer v. Ragsdale et al., 105 S. C. 201, 89 S. E. 705.

¶4I am of the opinion therefore that this exception should be dismissed and the findings of the Circuit Judge as to the amount of the fee should be affirmed.

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