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5 N.Y.2d 732

Morgan v. Onassis

New York Court of Appeals

Decided June 25, 1958

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1958-06-25

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1958-06-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently September 2010

3 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

501958196019701980199020002010decided

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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Per Curiam.

¶1The recovery in this action is not based on any contract between plaintiffs and defendant-appellant, Onassis, nor any situation analogous to that presented in Flamm. v. Noble (296 JST. Y. 262). Plaintiffs’ cause of action is based on a lien for professional services rendered not to Onassis but to their own client, which has been held to cover settlement funds in the hands of Onassis. Plaintiffs’ client, H. P. Drewry, S. A. R. L., was brought into the action as a necessary party (Oishei v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 101 App. Div. 473), which is primarily liable for the recovery insofar as Onassis is concerned. Consequently Onassis could not pay the lawyers for his adversary, H. P. Drewry, S. A. R. L., until the entry of a judgment binding on H. P. Drewry, S. A. R. L., which occurred April 9, 1956. The judgment appealed from should be modified so as to eliminate interest accruing prior to that date. Section 480 of the Civil Practice Act does not apply to this situation. Costs of the appeal are allowed to the defendant-appellant.

¶2Chief Judge Conway and Judges Desmond, Dye, Fuld, Froessel, Van Voorhis and Burke concur.

¶3Judgment modified in accordance with the opinion herein and, as so modified, affirmed, with costs to appellant.

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