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57 Ark. 93

Marshall v. Dossett

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided December 24, 1892

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1892-12-24

Robert J. Lea, Judge. STATEMENT BY THE COURT. This is an action of replevin brought by the appellants, who are attorneys at law, for the possession of a mule which, it is claimed, the defendant had promised to deliver to them as a fee for professional services rendered at his instance.

Relies on Alexander v. Hardin

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-12-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently August 1960

8 state decisions

3018921900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Cockriee, C. J.,

¶1after stating the facts as above reported.

¶2There was a general finding in favor of the defendant. Recurring to the facts set forth in the agreed statement, in order to sustain the finding, we draw the strongest inference in its favor that a jury would have been warranted in deducing if they had tried the cause. The fact that the evidence is reduced to an agreed statement does not change the rule. Robson v. Tomlinson, 54 Ark. 481.

¶31. contracts uey and ciiem.

¶4In that light the case may be stated thus : An attorney, who had agreed to defend a prisoner confined in jail, for a stipulated fee, afterwards, and while the relation of attorney and client subsisted, accepted a promise from the client to confer upon him a gratuity in the form of a mule, in case the attorney succeeded in restoring him to liberty.

¶5Such is the jealousy with which the courts guard transactions between attorney and client, while that relation exists, that the authorities agree that if the gift had been executed by delivery when the promise was made, under the case found, the client could have revoked it. Weeks on Attorneys, sec. 364; 1 Bigelow on Fraud, 265; Lecatt v. Sallee, 3 Porter, 115; S. C. 29 Am. Dec. 249.

¶6But the promise to make the gift in this case was not executed. The promise to make a gift of chattels, irrespective of the relation of attorney and client, confers no title or right of possession to the property promised, and affords no ground for a remedy against the promisor by replevin or otherwise.

¶72. Execii enftHvfwe!3*

¶8The judgment is right and will be affirmed.

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