Contract, Validity. Champerty. Attorney at Law. An agreement between a landowner and an attorney at law, that the attorney shall receive for his services, in trying before the county commissioners a petition for damages to be paid for land of the landowner taken by a railroad corporation, an amount equal to one and a half per cent of the amount awarded as damages together with the amount of all cash disbursements and expenses incurred for the trial and the taxable costs allowed by law before the county commissioners, is not champertous, but is a valid contract; and it here was held, that an attorney at law in an action on such a contract could recover the agreed compensation.
SHELDON, J.
These exceptions relate only to the first count of the plaintiff's declaration.
The special contract found to have been made between the parties was not champertous. The plaintiff in any event was to be paid for what he was to do. Both parties treated it as certain that the defendant must recover some compensation for the taking of his land by the railroad company. It was merely the amount of the plaintiff's compensation that was made dependent upon the amount so to be recovered. The facts here presented are stronger for the plaintiff than those which appeared in Hadlock v. Brooks, 178 Mass. 425; and the decision there rendered is decisive in favor of this plaintiff.
Exceptions overruled.