Scorned But Compensated
An opinion authored by Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
“Hell hath no fury like a lawyer scorned.” Tom Gordon, Hell Hath No Fury Like a Lawyer Scorned, WALL ST. J., (Jan. 28, 2015), http://www.wsj.com/articles/tom-gordon-hell-hath-no-furylike-a-lawyer-scorned-1422489433. The problem with scorning a lawyer is that lawyers tend to sue. So it is here. A law firm based in the District of Columbia, Bode & Grenier, LLP, provided legal services to three Michigan-based companies owned and managed by Carroll Knight (“appellants”). More than ten years into the relationship, appellants stopped paying the bill. The predictable result? Litigation. The law firm prevailed in the district court, winning a judgment for $70,000 in overdue legal fees—plus $269,585.19 in legal fees for having to litigate over $70,000 in legal fees. We affirm the district court.
The law firm represented the client from 1994 to 2008
advising on taxation, gasoline contracts, petroleum futures and various regulatory enforcement and litigation matters. Throughout most of the relationship, no written agreement governed the terms of legal representation or manner of payment. Appellants paid the law firm monthly based on oral agreements…
On November 25, 2005, catastrophe struck. Approximately 100,000 gallons of petroleum spilled out of holding tanks owned by appellants in Toledo, Ohio. Appellants stopped the leak, but were powerless to stop the flood of regulatory actions that followed in its wake. A month after the spill, Knight called Bode & Grenier’s managing partner, William Bode, to request the firm’s services. The firm soon tackled regulatory enforcement proceedings in Ohio, a lawsuit in federal court in Ohio, and counseled the company on other regulatory issues. As before, the firm billed appellants monthly.
The suit came when the fees went unpaid.
The court applied D.C. law
Here, the factors weigh in favor of applying D.C. law, not Michigan law. The first two factors—the place of contracting and place of negotiation—are inconclusive. Mr. Knight negotiated from Michigan, and Bode & Grenier from D.C. Likewise, the fifth factor—domicil—weighs evenly on both ends. In a dispute over a service contract, no factor matters more than the place of performance.
Nearly all of the legal services at issue were performed in D.C. by attorneys licensed to practice in D.C. See Appellee Br. 28–30. While the representation required occasional travel outside D.C. (mainly to Ohio), we find no evidence suggesting the firm’s attorneys routinely practiced in Michigan. The firm managed the representation from its sole office, located in D.C. The fourth factor—the location of the subject matter of the contract— supports applying D.C. law for the same reasons. This contract called for legal services managed and performed in D.C.
As a result, the law firm was able to recover fees for representing itself in this litigation. (Mike Frisch)