A dispute over fee entitlement has been resolved by the Utah Supreme Court.

This case arises out of a dispute over compensation paid to an attorney, Gregory Jones, by the law firm Mackey Price Thompson & Ostler (Mackey Price) for work Mr. Jones performed on several class-action contingency fee cases involving the weight-loss pill FenPhen. Mr. Jones worked on the Fen-Phen cases from 2002 to May 26, 2005, when he abruptly developed a mental disability called dissociative amnesia, which prevented him from remembering anything prior to that date. This disability also prevented him from continuing to work on the Fen-Phen litigation. The Fen-Phen cases eventually generated $1,060,869.20 in fees, and Mr. Jones was paid $165,000 (or around 15 percent) of these fees.

Mr. Jones claims that he and Mackey Price agreed that the general Compensation Agreement (which entitled Mr. Jones to 80 percent of the fees he generated from hourly work after payment of his overhead) would apply to the fees generated by the Fen-Phen litigation. In the alternative, he argues under quantum meruit that Mackey Price and additional Defendants were unjustly enriched by his work. Finally, Mr. Jones claims that a second law firm that worked on the Fen-Phen litigation and received a portion of the fees, Thompson & Skousen, is liable to him under Utah’s Fraudulent Transfer Act as recipients of the disputed funds.

Mr. Jones appeals a series of decisions by the district court. First, he appeals the district court’s dismissal of his contract claim on summary judgment. Second, he appeals the district court’s decision to deny his jury demand on his quantum meruit claim. Third, he challenges the district court’s measure of damages under his quantum meruit claim. Finally, he appeals the district court’s decision to dismiss his quantum meruit and Fraudulent Transfer Act claims against the individual Defendants.

We uphold the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Jones’s contract claim. Mr. Jones claimed that he and Mackey Price had agreed that the Compensation Agreement would govern the FenPhen fees. Mackey Price moved for summary judgment on this claim, arguing that it was undisputed that no such agreement was reached. Mackey Price directed the court to evidence supporting this assertion and in response, Mr. Jones failed to present affirmative evidence demonstrating a genuine issue of fact for trial regarding this claim. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Jones’s contract claim.

We reverse the denial of Mr. Jones’s jury demand because at the time of the ratification of the Utah Constitution a claim for money damages under quantum meruit was a claim at law, not in equity. In sending the claim back to the jury, we clarify that the correct measure of damages for the contract-implied-in-law branch of a quantum meruit claim is the benefit conferred. Finally, we uphold the district court’s dismissal of the individual Defendants from both the quantum meruit claim and the Fraudulent Transfer Act claim.

(Mike Frisch )