Geesey v. Geesey

Boyd, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellees filed a petition in the Orphans’ Court of Frederick County alleging that certain claims were allowed the appellant in his second administration account through fraud and deception practised upon the Court, and praying that the order ratifying the account be rescinded and that the administrator be required to restate that account so as to omit the items objected to. The petition is not as specific as it ³⁷² might have been, but the items objected to were fees paid J. F. R. Heagey, the attorney for the administrator, for services rendered in four cases to which the administrator was a party, which were compromised and settled at the May term, 1901, of the Circuit Court for Frederick County. The fees thus paid were seventy-five dollars in each of two cases, twenty-five dollars in one and twenty dollars in another—making $195.00 in all.

Reference to one of them will indicate what the objection of the appellees is to them. Florence M. Geesey had presented an account against the estate for $414.41, which was passed by the Orphans’ Court but disputed by the administrator. Suit was brought on it and it was compromised by a judgment of $200.00. When the appellant settled his second account he presented a voucher for it which, after stating the titling of the case, had the following items : “ 1901, May 15th, judgment for the plaintiff for.. . .$200 00 and judgment entered paid satisfied.

Defendant’s cost........................... 6 00 May 15th, 1901, Received of Augustus M. Geesey, Admr., as counsel fee in this case J. F. Heagey, $75 00” In the administrator’s second account the allowance is thus stated: “ 1. For the sum paid Florence M. Geesey, judgment and cost in No. 67 Trials, May Term, 1901, per Rec. App. $281.00.” That amount includes the fee of seventy-five dollars, and it is that and the fees in the other cases, which are stated, in effect in the same terms, that are objected to. This account was settled on the third day of July, 1901, the first having been stated on the 4th of December, 1900, in which there was an allowance of $100.00 to Mr. Heagey as “ counsel fee.” At the hearing of the petition in the Orphans’ Court the appellees called several witnesses and amongst other subjects inquired into was what was included by the term “ costs,” the effort being to show that that term did not include counsel fees.

The appellant then called a member of the bar and sought to prove by him the value of such services as Mr. Heagey had rendered in these cases. The Court refused to ³⁷³ permit him to answer the questions propounded and afterwards filed an opinion and passed an order annulling the order ratifying the second account, ordering the administrator to1 restate it, “ omitting and excepting therefrom all allowances of counsel fees to the said J. F. R. Heagey, which are included in the several ‘judgments and costs,’ ” and directing that the cost of the proceeding be paid by the administrator out' of his own funds. In the opinion of the Court it is stated that the allowance of $100.00 counsel fees in the first account was for services rendered, and to be rendered, for the estate and the conduct of Mr. Heagey in reference to these fees, amounting to $195.00, is criticised in severe terms, although we do not find any evidence in the record to show what the fee of $100.00 was allowed for. If an attorney does questionable acts he should suffer for them, but he is at least entitled to a hearing before being condemned.

There is nothing in the testimony of the deputy register of wills, who stated the account, to show that Mr. Heagey had imposed on him. The vouchers were filed with him and those involved in this