LAURENCE V. PARNOFF v. DARCY YUILLE
(AC 36106)
Appellate Court of Connecticut
Officially released February 23, 2016
Gruendel, Prescott and Pellegrino, Js.
Argued October 28, 2015—officially released February 23, 2016
(
Thomas J. Weihing, with whom, on the brief, were Dana P. Lonergan, John T. Bochanis and Laurence V. Parnoff, Jr., for the appellant (plaintiff).
Barbara L. Cox, for the appellee (defendant).
Opinion
PELLEGRINO, J. The issue raised in this appeal requires us to assess whether an attorney who executes a fee agreement that violates General Statutes § 52-251c,1 commonly known as the ‘‘fee cap statute,’’ may, nevertheless, recover against the client under the doctrine of quantum meruit. The plaintiff, Laurence V. Parnoff, appeals from the judgment of the trial court, rendered on remand from this court, in favor of the defendant, Darcy Yuille. On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the trial court improperly rendered judgment in favor of the defendant on his claim of quantum meruit. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The following facts, set forth in the first appeal of this case, Parnoff v. Yuille, 139 Conn. App. 147, 57 A.3d 349 (2012), cert. denied, 307 Conn. 956, 59 A.3d 1192 (2013) (Parnoff I), and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. On December 5, 1998, the plaintiff and the defendant entered into a contingent fee retainer agreement through which the defendant retained the plaintiff to seek damages for personal injuries that she sustained as a result of her employer’s allegedly bad faith handling of her workers’ compensation claim. Id., 152, 160. The fee agreement provided for a contingent fee of 40 percent, which exceeds the cap set forth in § 52-251c. Id., 152. An arbitration panel issued its decision on the personal injury case on June 29, 2004, and awarded the defendant damages in the amount of $1,096,032.93. Id., 153. The plaintiff sent the defendant an itemized invoice with an attorney’s fee representing 40 percent of the gross settlement proceeds. Id. The defendant objected to the fee and, after the parties were unable to reach an accord, the plaintiff served a three count complaint against the defendant. Id., 153–54.
The first count
Following the verdict, the plaintiff appealed and the defendant cross appealed. Id., 159. This court held, inter alia, that the fee cap statute applied to the personal injury complaint that the plaintiff had brought on behalf of the defendant, and that a fee agreement that required payment of fees greater than permitted by the fee cap statute is not enforceable and against public policy. Id., 161, 169, 172. This court reversed the judgment in favor of the plaintiff on the breach of contract and bad faith counts, and ordered the case remanded with direction to dismiss counts one and three of the complaint. Id., 173. This court did not address count two, quantum meruit, because neither party asked that the matter be remanded for a hearing. Id., 158 n.10.
On remand to the trial court, the defendant filed a ‘‘Motion for Judgment’’ and moved for judgment as a matter of law on count two. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant on count two, quantum meruit. This appeal followed.
The plaintiff argues that the trial court improperly granted the defendant’s motion for judgment as to count two of his complaint. Specifically, he argues that count two was never decided on the merits by the jury and he requests his day in court. Although count two is captioned ‘‘unjust enrichment’’ and the plaintiff refers to it as such throughout his brief, this court, in Parnoff I, supra, 139 Conn. App. 154, noted that the second count of the complaint ‘‘sets forth a claim more properly viewed as one in quantum meruit . . . .’’ Accordingly, we will refer to it as such.
This court previously held that
We begin with the principles of law that guide our discussion. ‘‘The determination of whether an equitable doctrine applies in a particular case is a question of law subject to plenary review.’’ Walpole Woodworkers, Inc. v. Manning, 307 Conn. 582, 588, 57 A.3d 730 (2012).
‘‘Quantum meruit is a theory of contract recovery that does not depend upon the existence of a contract, either express or implied in fact. . . . Rather, quantum meruit arises out of the need to avoid unjust enrichment to a party, even in the absence of an actual agreement. . . . Quantum meruit literally means as much as he has deserved . . . . Black’s Law Dictionary (7th Ed. 1999). Centered on the prevention of injustice, quantum meruit strikes the appropriate balance by reevaluating
In Parnoff I, this court discussed the public policy considerations underlying
In Parnoff I, supra, 170, this court was concerned with the public policy implications of allowing an attorney who executed a fee agreement in violation of
Although recovery under a theory alternative to
Further, the plain language of
Accordingly, an attorney is unable to recover in quantum meruit when the attorney is barred from contractual recovery because the retainer fee agreement violated the fee cap statute and the fee cap statute precludes such recovery.
The plaintiff also claims that the trial court inappropriately acted on the defendant’s motion, which was captioned ‘‘Motion for Judgment,’’ because a stand-alone motion for judgment does not exist under our rules of practice. We do not agree that the trial court erred.
‘‘The interpretive construction of the rules of practice is to be governed by the same principles as those regulating statutory interpretation. . . . The interpretation and application of a statute, and thus a Practice Book provision, involves a question of law over which our review is plenary.’’ (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Wiseman v. Armstrong, 295 Conn. 94, 99, 989 A.2d 1027 (2010).
In Grimm v. Fox, 303 Conn. 322, 327 n.6, 33 A.3d 205 (2012), our Supreme Court held that a stand-alone motion for judgment does not exist in Connecticut. The court, however, construed the ‘‘Motion for Judgment’’ filed by the defendants in that case to be a motion for summary judgment and found no error in the trial court ruling on that motion. Id., 337. Furthermore, the caption of a motion is not dispositive, and ‘‘we look to the substance of the relief sought by the motion rather than the form . . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Farren v. Farren, 142 Conn. App. 145, 156, 64 A.3d 352, cert. denied, 309 Conn. 903, 68 A.3d 658 (2013).
In Parnoff I, this court held that a fee agreement governed by
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
Notes
‘‘(b) In any such contingency fee agreement such fee shall be the exclusive method for payment of the attorney by the claimant and shall not exceed an amount equal to a percentage of the damages awarded and received by the claimant or of the settlement amount received by the claimant as follows: (1) Thirty-three and one-third per cent of the first three hundred thousand dollars; (2) twenty-five per cent of the next three hundred thousand dollars; (3) twenty per cent of the next three hundred thousand dollars; (4) fifteen per cent of the next three hundred thousand dollars; and (5) ten per cent of any amount which exceeds one million two hundred thousand dollars. . . .’’