AMBASHANKAR UTTAMRAM MALJI Vs. HEPTULLA SARAFALLI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a revision application against the decree of the learned First Class Subordinate Judge, vested with Small Causes Court powers, of Broach. The circumstances giving rise to the suit were as follows:

(2.) The petitioner, who is a respectable and apparently well-known pleader of the Broach Court, entered into an agreement with the opponent as his client to conduct certain litigation contemplated by the latter for a fee of Rs. 125 which was fixed on the conventional "ad valorem" scale on the amount of the suit. The petitioner read the papers in the case and came to the conclusion that further instructions were necessary and in order to properly draft the plaint instructed his client to get them. Thereafter, the petitioner saw nothing of his client for three months, when he was informed by him that the claim had been compromised. The client, the opponent in this application, filed a suit against the petitioner to recover the fee of Rs. 125. The learned Subordinate Judge came to the conclusion that the case should be decided on the principles of a "quantum meruit" and passed a decree in favour of the plaintiff in the sum of Rs. 70 only directing each party to bear his own costs. Against that order the present revisional application has been preferred.

(3.) The point for determination is whether on an agreement between the pleader and his client such as was arrived at in the present case the pleader is entitled to retain the whole fee or whether, if the suit does not proceed to a final decree, the pleader is entitled to merely a "quantum meruit" of the fee that has been arranged. In deciding this point it is important to note that in this case there was an agreement with reference to the fee. This is not a case like those cited before the learned Subordinate Judge, where there was no agreement between the pleader and his client and this case is therefore distinguishable. In my opinion, the pleader was entitled clearly to retain the whole fee which was paid to him. The agreement was that in return for that fee he should conduct the litigation for the client, and it does not lie in the client's power to alter that agreement by compromising the suit before the trial. The effect of that would be to turn the contract of an engagement to do the work for a payment of Rs. 125 into an agreement to pay a proportionate part of the fee for a proportionate part of the litigation.