Buck v. Bailey

Citations

• 82 Wash. 398

Syllabus

<p>Attorney and Client — Client’s Recovery of Parers — Proceedings. Where the attorney has no lien upon warrants of his client in his hands, except the statutory lien provided by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 136, the court wherein the action is pending may enter an order requiring him to deliver the warrants to his client, within a specified time, under penalty of commitment for contempt, as expressly provided in § 137.</p> <p>Same — Recovery of Papers — Evidence—Admissibility. In a proceeding to require an attorney to deliver warrants in his hands belonging to his client, under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 137, evidence of the amount reasonably due the attorney for his fees is inadmissible, where he had already instituted an independent suit to determine that matter.</p> <p>Same — Dealings Between- — Possession of Papers- — Right to— Lien — Contract for —Evidence—-Sufficiency. No attorney’s lien upon warrants of his client in his hands is shown by express contract therefor, where, upon a dispute as to the fees, the attorney retained two $1,000 warrants giving a signed receipt therefor, describing the warrants and reciting that they were to be held by him “until the final settlement after the assessment is made and warrants due,” and where at the same time he delivered up $18,990 of warrants, taking a receipt therefor from one of his clients reciting that it left in his hands two warrants of $1,000 each, “giving him the right to sell same at any time and to account to us for the proceeds;” and the client denied that the last quoted words were on the typewritten receipt at the time he signed the same, or that the attorney had been given any right to sell the warrants, and the attorney admitted that he shortly after sold the warrants without giving any notice or accounting therefor; since the two receipts are directly contradictory and raise an ambiguity, which should be construed most strongly against the party preparing it, especially where such party is an attorney dealing with a cl