351 F.2d 671 - Dolan v. United States — 351 F.2d 671

How this case has been cited

Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently November 2015 · most notably De Rodulfa v. United States (1972), 385 So. 2d 83 - In Interest of DB (1980)

16 federal appellate · 10 state decisions

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.

¶1 *672James V. Dolan, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., pro se.

¶2Welsh, Cornell, Pyszka & Carlton, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for appellant.

¶3Lloyd G. Bates, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Miami, Fla., William A. Meadows, Jr., U. S. Atty., Robert C. Josefsberg, Asst. U. S. Atty., Miami, Fla., for appellee.

¶4Before TUTTLE, Chief Judge, THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge, and CARSWELL, District Judge.

¶5PER CURIAM:

¶6There was no error in the district court’s dismissal of this claim by an attorney for compensation for his professional services rendered in the representation of an indigent defendant by court appointment prior to the enactment into law of the Criminal Justice Act of 1964.

¶7We are in full accord with the rationale of the Ninth Circuit in its opinion in United States v. Dillon, 346 F.2d 633, decided June 16, 1965, wherein it was said:

“ … the obligation of the legal profession to serve indigents on court order is an ancient and established tradition, and … appointed counsel have generally been compensated, if at all, only by statutory fees which would be inadequate under just compensation principles, and which are usually payable only in limited types of cases. Further, … the vast majority of the courts which have passed on the question have denied claims of appointed counsel for nonstatutory just compensation, pointing out that representation of indigents under court order, without a fee, is a condition under which lawyers are licensed to practice as officers of the court, and that the obligation of the legal profession to serve without compensation has been modified only by statute. An applicant for admission to practice law may justly be deemed to be aware of the traditions of the profession which he is joining, and to know that one of these traditions is that a lawyer is an officer of the court obligated to represent indigents for little or no compensation upon court order. Thus, the lawyer has consented to, and assumed, this obligation and when he is called upon to fulfill it, he cannot contend that it is a ‘taking of his services.’ Cf. Kunhardt & Company, Inc. v. United States, 266 U.S. 537, 45 S.Ct. 158, 69 L.Ed. 428 (1925).”

¶8The order of the district court denying petition for compensation is, therefore,

¶9Affirmed.