Phillips v. Edsall

Citations

• 127 Ill. 535
• 20 N.E. 801

Syllabus

<p>1. CHANCERY—jurisdiction—to enforce equitable lien upon a fund— as, in case of the assignment of the proceeds of a prospective judgment.' A person employed attorneys to attend to certain suits, and gave his notes to them for their fees, as agreed upon, and to secure the payment. of such notes, by his written contract assigned to the attorneys such portion of tile amount that should be found due the client in a certain cause then pending, as might be sufficient to pay the notes, and authorized such attorneys to receive and receipt for the same. Judgment was recovered in the case in respect to which the assignment was made, and the money paid into court, whereupon the attorneys filed their intervening petition in that case, setting up their right to have their notes paid out of the fund: Held, that a court of equity had jurisdiction to entertain the petition and to enforce the assignment, a trust being involved.</p> <p>2. Where a client makes a written assignment of a part of his claim then in litigation, to his attorneys, sufficient to pay his obligation to them for fees in that and other cases, the attorneys may, either before or after the decree in the pending case in which the assignment is made, and before the maturity of the notes, file their supplemental bill in the cause, and have their assignment protected and enforced by the court, and have a decree entered preserving their equitable lien upon the fund when recovered and paid into court. In such case, the attorneys, as such assignees, have no remedy at law to enforce the assignment, and the jurisdiction of a court of chancery is unquestionable.</p> <p>3. The exhibiting of a bill or petition is proper at any time after the assignment, in order to give the court notice of the rights of- the assignee in a fund which is the subject of pending litigation.</p> <p>4. Same—assignment of part of a debt—creates an equitable lien enforceable only in equity. A part of a debt or chose in action is not assignable at la