THOMAS D. BOYLE, Appellant, v. CLYDE SNOW & SESSIONS PC, Appellee.
No. 20140820-CA
THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
Filed April 19, 2018
2018 UT App 69
JUDGE KATE A. TOOMEY authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN concurred.
Third District Court, West Jordan Department
The Honorable Barry G. Lawrence
No. 090400630
Thomas D. Boyle, Appellant Pro Se
Jeffery S. Williams, Attorney for Appellee
TOOMEY,
¶1 This case is before us on remand from the Utah Supreme Court. See generally Boyle v. Clyde Snow & Sessions PC (Boyle II), 2017 UT 57, rev‘g Boyle v. Clyde Snow & Sessions PC (Boyle I), 2016 UT App 114, 378 P.3d 98. Our supreme court reversed this court‘s determination in Boyle I that the district court did not have jurisdiction to award attorney fees to Clyde Snow & Sessions PC (Clyde Snow), concluding that Thomas D. Boyle had “waived any objection to procedural deficiencies in Clyde Snow‘s intervention.” Id. ¶¶ 3–4. On remand, we are instructed to address Boyle‘s remaining contentions. Id. ¶ 22.
¶2 Boyle contends the district court erred in awarding attorney fees to Clyde Snow because: (1) Clyde Snow failed to perfect its attorney‘s lien under
BACKGROUND1
¶3 This case began in June 2007 when a plaintiff (Plaintiff) retained Clyde Snow on a contingency fee basis to represent her in her son‘s wrongful death action. Clyde Snow‘s contingency fee agreement (the CFA) with Plaintiff secured a forty-percent interest, through an attorney‘s lien, “of any Recovery achieved either by negotiated compromise or settlement prior to or after the filing of a Complaint.” The CFA also provided, “In the event of a Recovery after [Clyde Snow] has been discharged, [Clyde Snow] shall be compensated for the reasonable value of [Clyde Snow‘s] services.”
¶4 Clyde Snow assigned Boyle, who was then an attorney with the firm, to litigate the case. In 2010, after about three years of litigation, Boyle joined Prince Yeates and “[Plaintiff] elected to have [her] claim follow Boyle.” Boyle v. Clyde Snow & Sessions PC (Boyle II), 2017 UT 57, ¶ 5. In July 2010, Clyde Snow sent a letter to Plaintiff and Boyle demanding a minimum payment for its services in the event of a recovery. A few days later, Clyde Snow filed a notice of attorney‘s lien, asserting its interest in Plaintiff‘s recovery for the value of the services it had rendered.
¶5 In May 2013, the parties to the wrongful death action settled the claim and moved to dismiss the case with prejudice the following month. In late June, before the court made a decision related to the motion to dismiss, Clyde Snow filed a restated notice of attorney‘s lien and an objection to the dismissal of the wrongful death action, arguing that the issue of the attorney‘s lien had not been resolved. The district court dismissed the wrongful death claims with prejudice but ordered the case to “remain open . . . for the sole and limited purpose of deciding [Clyde Snow‘s] attorney‘s lien.”
¶6 The court ordered Clyde Snow and Prince Yeates to file position statements and mediate the attorney‘s lien issue. In its position statement, Prince Yeates explained that it need not be involved, because the dispute regarding attorney fees was between Clyde Snow, Boyle, and another attorney involved in the case.2 Clyde Snow argued that the underlying case originated with Clyde Snow through the CFA and that it was entitled to receive reasonable value for the services it had provided. The parties attempted to mediate but were unsuccessful.
¶7 In January 2014, after notifying the court that mediation was unsuccessful, Prince Yeates filed a motion to interplead funds Clyde Snow could recover if the court determined Clyde Snow had established entitlement to them. Prince Yeates disclaimed any interest it might have had in the interpleaded funds and assigned “any such interest to Mr. Boyle” and the other attorney. The district court granted Prince Yeates‘s motion and Clyde Snow filed a complaint, asserting its entitlement to the interpleaded settlement funds. Boyle answered the complaint, arguing that Clyde Snow should not receive any of the funds, because it had mismanaged the case, and he asserted several counterclaims. Boyle also moved to dismiss Clyde Snow‘s complaint, alleging that Clyde Snow failed to properly intervene, and he alternatively filed a motion for summary judgment. The court denied Boyle‘s motions—concluding the claims in his motion for summary judgment were previously addressed in earlier pleadings
¶8 At the evidentiary hearing, Clyde Snow called five witnesses, including an expert witness who testified to the method used by Clyde Snow to determine the amount of fees to which it was entitled and to opine on the reasonableness of the amount of its attorney fees demand. Boyle recalled one of Clyde Snow‘s witnesses for additional testimony and was himself cross-examined by Clyde Snow‘s attorney during his defense. At the close of the hearing, the court ruled in favor of Clyde Snow and instructed Clyde Snow‘s attorney to draft a proposed written order, including findings of fact and conclusions of law, which the court adopted.
¶9 In a written order, the district court concluded that, “having heard and weighed [the] testimony of witnesses and other evidence,” Clyde Snow was entitled to the “entire amount of the interpleaded funds” to satisfy its attorney‘s lien. The court concluded that, based on the expert‘s opinion, the method used to determine the amount Clyde Snow was entitled to was reasonable because it established a fee proportional to the time Clyde Snow and Prince Yeates had dedicated to the case. The court also explained that this method was reasonable given the complexity of the case; the amount in controversy; the scope of services rendered by each firm and the results obtained; the novelty and difficulty of the issues; whether the case was necessary to vindicate Plaintiff‘s underlying action; the efficiency of the representation; the number of hours billed by each firm; the nature of the contingency fee agreements; and the expertise of the attorneys involved. Finally, the court concluded that Boyle “presented no facts that would indicate that the amount of Clyde Snow‘s claimed lien is unfair or unreasonable” and that his “argument that he is entitled to be paid more than what he has already been paid by [each firm] is without merit.” Boyle appeals.
ANALYSIS
¶10 Boyle contends the district court erred in awarding attorney fees to Clyde Snow for three reasons. First, he contends that Clyde Snow failed to perfect its attorney‘s lien under
¶11 An appellant‘s brief “must explain, with reasoned analysis supported by citations to legal authority and the record, why the [appellant] should prevail on appeal.” See
¶12 Boyle‘s principal brief included a “statement of the case,” describing the facts of the case without providing any record cites for those facts.
¶13 For example, with respect to his contention that Clyde Snow failed to perfect its attorney‘s lien, Boyle argues that the restated notice of attorney‘s lien filed in June 2013—one month after the underlying wrongful death action was settled—was not perfected because “[n]o demand to [Plaintiff]
¶14 Without fully articulating his reasoning, Boyle also asserts that Clyde Snow failed to perfect its lien because all three of Clyde Snow‘s notices of attorney‘s lien violated other subsections of
¶15 With respect to his two other contentions, Boyle has failed to develop any reasoned analysis, supported by case law, in explaining why he is entitled to relief on appeal.
¶16 For example, Boyle asserts the district court failed to recognize the assignment of contract rights in his favor, but he merely provides a definition of assignment of contract rights—as articulated in Sunridge Development Corp. v. RB & G Engineering, Inc., 2010 UT 6, ¶ 13, 230 P.3d 1000. He then states that because Prince Yeates “had previously assigned 80 percent of its rights in [Plaintiff‘s] contract years before to Boyle[, Prince Yeates] could not give up more rights in the interpleader than [it] possessed.”
¶17 But our review of the record shows that Boyle‘s employment agreement with Prince Yeates provided that, after Prince Yeates recovered out-of-pocket costs and twenty percent of the recovery under its contingency fee with Plaintiff,
Thomas D. Boyle and [the other attorney] (by agreement between them) share, proportionate to their hourly contributions to the case, the remaining 80 percent of the attorney‘s fee from which is paid (a) the hourly time of other [Prince Yeates] timekeepers at their standard hourly rates, (b) time worked by [another individual] (by separate agreement between [that individual], Mr. Boyle and [the other attorney]) and (c) Clyde Snow & Session‘s interest in any recovery received.
(Emphasis added.) In other words, the assignment provision required that, in the event Plaintiff recovered damages, Boyle was required to reimburse Clyde Snow for the costs and fees it had incurred during its
¶18 Boyle has failed to explain why Prince Yeates‘s assignment of rights to Boyle, which required him to pay Clyde Snow and others who helped litigate the underlying wrongful death case, did not comport with the court‘s conclusion that, because there were “no excess [interpleaded] funds[,] . . . the assignment issue raised by Mr. Boyle is immaterial.” He has therefore failed to meet his burden of persuasion with respect to this issue.
¶19 Finally, Boyle claims his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated because the district court denied him a “full and fair opportunity to be to heard” as “the assignee of [Plaintiff].” Boyle states that he was Plaintiff‘s “assignee under the [CFA]” with Clyde Snow, but he does not explain how the CFA assigned Plaintiff‘s rights to him. Instead, he provides thirteen numbered paragraphs that articulate motions filed with the district court and the court‘s rulings on those motions and in its final order. Boyle cites his memorandum in support of summary judgment, which states, “Boyle is the assignee of [Plaintiff‘s] rights, title, and interest in and to [the CFA] between [Plaintiff] . . . and [Clyde Snow] . . . . Date[d] December 6, 2013.” This is perplexing because Boyle has previously agreed that the CFA was entered into in 2007, not 2013; and this memorandum states that the information could be found in an exhibit entitled “[Plaintiff‘s] Assignment to Boyle, dated December 13, 2013” rather than the CFA entered into by Plaintiff and Clyde Snow. Boyle has not referred us to the exhibit purportedly assigning him Plaintiff‘s rights in the underlying case.
¶20 Boyle further argues that the district court violated his due process rights because the court “failed to apply the factors set forth by the Utah Supreme Court, failed to apply Utah law, [and] due process law.” Boyle references the court‘s order in which the court articulated and analyzed “all of the factors set forth by the Utah Supreme Court” with respect to awarding interpleaded funds and concluding that those factors “weigh[ed] in favor of Clyde Snow[] and supported Clyde Snow‘s lien.” Without “providing reasoned analysis” supported by legal authority, Boyle cannot meet his burden of persuasion on appeal. See Adamson, 2017 UT 2, ¶ 13. We therefore decline to address this claim based on Boyle‘s failure to adequately brief his argument and to persuade us of its validity.
CONCLUSION
¶21 Boyle has failed to develop a reasoned analysis supported by citations to legal authority or relevant parts of the record to support his contentions of error. We therefore decline to address his arguments on the merits, affirm the district court‘s award of attorney fees to Clyde Snow, and remand to the district court to dismiss with prejudice Boyle‘s claim for additional attorney fees and to disburse any remaining interpleaded funds as is appropriate in view of our decision.