Aresh v. Marin-Morales
Annotate this CaseZaal Aresh appealed an order vacating a judgment he obtained to enforce his attorney fee lien and to collect the fees and costs he earned in two cases from the settlement funds recovered in those cases. His dispute was with respondent Daniel Williams, the attorney who took over the clients’ representation after Aresh’s services were terminated. Aresh had initially included Williams as a defendant in his lawsuit, along with all the other potential claimants to the settlement funds recovered in the cases, with the intent that all interested parties could participate in resolving their claims to those funds in a single action. But Williams demurred, arguing Aresh was required to establish the validity, value, and enforceability of his own attorney fee liens in an action against just his former clients before he could state any cause of action involving a third party. Aresh dismissed Williams and the other third parties as defendants in the case and litigated his fee claims against only his former clients. A trial court determined Aresh was entitled to recover his earned fees and costs from the settlement amounts pursuant to his liens. However, over Aresh’s objection, the court also purported to determine the amount of fees and costs Williams was entitled to be paid from the settlement funds in the two cases, and ordered that the remainder of the two settlement funds be dispersed to the clients. Williams moved to vacate the judgment, arguing the court could not adjudicate the amount of fees and costs he was entitled to receive in a case in which he was not a party. Williams also argued the court was required to vacate the entire judgment because if the court allowed the remaining provisions of the judgment to stand, it would dispose of all the settlement funds other than those awarded to Williams, and thus would implicitly preclude him from recovering a greater share of the settlement funds than had been awarded in his absence. The trial court agreed and vacated the entire judgment. The Court of Appeal disagreed, however, and reversed in part: where the trial court erred was in failing to distinguish between the provisions of the judgment awarding fees and costs to Aresh, and those awarding the remaining portion of the settlement funds to Aresh’s former clients. Only the latter could not be severed from the properly vacated provisions adjudicating Williams’s rights. The provisions adjudicating Aresh’s rights to specific portions of the settlement funds remained intact.
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