The plaintiff (appellant) instituted this action in a justice’s court on a promissory note payable to his son, L. A. Crutcher, in the sum of one hundred dollars, with interest at eight per cent per annum from date, dated October 19, 1906, and signed by the defеndant (respondent). The case reached the circuit court on appeal where it was tried anew.
Dеfendant, for answer, admitted that on or about October 19,1906, he borrowed from L. F. Crutcher the sum of one hundred dollars and gаve his note therefor payable to L. A. Crutcher, the son of the plaintiff, and that at that time the plaintiff gave him ninety dоllars and retained ten dollars for one month’s interest. Fur
The issue was sharply drawn in the circuit court as to the payment of this note. The defendant, on whom the burden of proof was cast, testified that he never at any time borrowed more thаn one hundred dollars from L. P. Crutcher, receiving on that loan only ninety dollars, and that he never borrowed or recеived any sum of money from L. A. Crutcher; that from time to time he. was required by the plaintiff to sign renewal notes, and that when he made a renewal note the plaintiff told him the original note was down at his home and that he would mark it paid and deliver it to him. In corroboration, defendant proved by his brother, who was at that time sheriff of Greene county, that there wаs a balance paid on a note of some eighty dollars which paid the note in full. Plaintiff admits having received this money from defendant’s brother but contends that that was a payment on a different note and transaction. The plаintiff’s testimony is that there was some three hundred or four hundred dollars loaned to the defendant and notes taken for thе various amounts at the different times, and he is corroborated somewhat by his son’s testimony.
The questions as to whether this note in suit was paid and as to whether (on defendant’s counterclaim) usury was collected were purely questions of fact and were determined by the judgment of the trial court sitting as a jury in favor’ of the defendant as to the note and fоr nine dollars and seventy-five cents usurious interest collected. Although there appears in the motion for .a nеw trial an assignment to the ef
The second and only point relied upon by appellant for reversal on which authorities are cited is that the court acting under section 7182, Revised Statutes 1909, assessed an attorney’s fee of twenty-five dollars against plaintiff. It is insisted that the record fails to show аny evidence at the trial relative to the value of the services rendered by defendant’s attorney. There is nо complaint that the amount fixed was in any way unreasonable; nor is it disputed by appellant that the trial court mаy assess attorneys’ fees under the statute mentioned. The only contention is that the court did not have any evidence whatever before it from which to determine the amount to be allowed.
That evidence as to what is a rеasonable attorney’s fee in a particular case is merely advisory to either judge or jury cannot be quеstioned. [See, Cosgrove v. Leonard,
We must deny that rеversible error was committed, under the circumstances, in allowing an attorney’s fee for services in the absence of expert testimony as to the reasonable value of those services. There is no doubt in our minds that a judgе who is experienced and is himself in a sense an expert on the value of legal services can from his own knowledge of a case tried before him fix the amount of a fee to be allowed to an attorney in the cаse without any advisory testimony as to their value. It was held in the case of Colley v. Wolcott,
The judgment is affirmed.