In Miller v. FW Commercial Properties, LLC, No. 105066 (Mar. 9, 2012), the Kansas Supreme Court held that a lawyer who represents a party in a condemnation case is not entitled to recapture his or her legal fees from another party’s condemnation award because the lawyer is not a “party in interest” in the case.
KDOT condemned Armendariz’s land. The petition also listed the Britts as interested parties, because they claimed they owned one of Armendariz’s tracts by virtue of adverse possession, and had filed a quiet title action. Eventual award for this tract: $18,000, which is $11,000 more than KDOT’s original offer.
Amendariz was not represented by a lawyer until after the award (he appealed the valuation, and contests the adverse possession lawsuit). The Britts were represented by a lawyer in the condemnation, and a different lawyer in the quiet title action. The Britts’s condemnation lawyer informed their quiet title lawyer and Amendariz’s lawyer that his fee agreement with the Britts entitles him to 25% of the $11,000, either as a matter of contract, or quasi-contract (quantum meruit).
By this time, the jury in the quiet title action had found for Amendariz, ruling that the Britts had no interest in the condemned tract. Also, KDOT and Amendariz settled the valuation appeal for $25,000.
The district court ordered the clerk to award the Britts’s condemnation lawyer $2,750 (25% of the increase of the condemnation award over KDOT’s offer) in quantum meruit. The theory being that although he was the Britts’s lawyer, his efforts resulted in an increase of the award after KDOT’s offer, so he should be entitled to be compensated for his efforts by Amendariz. Amendariz argued that it was solely his property that was taken, and that he is not liable in quantum meruit for someone else’s lawyer’s efforts.
The Supreme Court made short work of the district court’s order awarding the Britts’s lawyer his fee, holding that the Kansas statute that gives the district court’s jurisdiction to determine the division of a compensation award is limited to disputes “among the parties in interest.” See Kansas Stat. Ann. § 26-517. Since the lawyer for the Britts was not a party to the eminent domain case, and had no legal interest in the tract taken, he did not qualify. Nor were the Britts parties in interest by that time, because they had lost their adverse possession claim against Amendariz:
Thus, when the district court ordered a final distribution of the appraisers’ award, it lacked authority to do so under K.S.A. 26-517 because Armendariz was the only party in interest and there was no “dispute among the parties in interest” for the court to resolve. This error is apparent in the text of the district court’s order, which contains no mention of the Britts but awards [their lawyer] $2,750 based on his quantum meruit claim for attorney fees against Armendariz.
Slip op. at 7. Seems about right to us.
Miller v. FW Commercial Properties, LLC, No. 105066 (Mar. 9, 2012)