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Rothman v. Dolin11/24/1993
COURT OF APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA, SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT, DIVISION FIVE
No. B068584
1993.CA.40815 ; 20 Cal. App. 4th 755; 24 Cal. Rptr. 2d 571
Decided: November 24, 1993.
DANIEL L. ROTHMAN, PLAINTIFF AND RESPONDENT,
v.
NORMAN M. DOLIN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.
Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. C417627, George M. Dell, Judge. Retired Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court sitting under assignment by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.
Kathleen L. Jernigan and Gerald I. Neiter for Defendant and Appellant.
W. Ruel Walker for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Opinion by Armstrong, J., with Grignon, Acting P. J., and Godoy Perez, J., Concurring.
Armstrong
This is an appeal from the trial court's judgment on a petition for court supervision of the winding up of a dissolved law corporation, the two shareholders of which were appellant Norman M. Dolin and respondent Daniel L. Rothman.
In early 1982, appellant and respondent were each 50 percent shareholders of Dolin & Rothman, a professional corporation (the Firm). By mutual agreement, the Firm was dissolved on May 31, 1982. At the time of the dissolution, the parties agreed on the division of the Firm's cases. However, they did not agree upon the allocation of fees to be received from future work for those clients whose cases they each took. Specifically, the parties could not agree on the distribution of fees with respect to one client with whom the Firm had a contingency fee agreement, and who subsequently retained respondent to provide legal services. Additionally, Respondent was of the opinion that the unfinished business of the Firm on the date of dissolution, which matters were to be finished on behalf of the Firm and the fees from which were to be distributed to the shareholders according to their shareholdings in the law corporation rather than according to which particular lawyer performed the services, included all matters then pending,
whether hourly fee or continency fee cases. Appellant disagreed, believing that only contingency fee cases should be included within the Firm's unfinished business.
[[FACTS__
Discussion
[[__
Citing Jewel v. Boxer (1984) 156 Cal. App. 3d 171 [203 Cal. Rptr. 13] and Fox v. Abrams (1985) 163 Cal. App. 3d 610 [210 Cal. Rptr. 260], the trial court ruled that all pending cases of the Firm on the date of dissolution constituted the unfinished business of the Firm, regardless of whether the matters were hourly rate cases or contingency fee cases. Consequently, the parties were entitled to share equally in the fees received in those cases regardless of which attorney had actually performed the services.
Appellant maintains that Jewel v. Boxer and Fox v. Abrams apply only to contingency fee cases. He therefore argues that while the fees generated by respondent's contingency fee cases which were pending at the time the Firm dissolved belong to the Firm, the fees generated by appellant's hourly cases pending at the same time are to be treated differently.
In Jewel v. Boxer, supra, 156 Cal. App. 3d 171, the former partners of a law partnership brought an action for an accounting with respect to fees received by the partnership after dissolution which derived fro
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