North Carolina Lawyers Weekly
Law Firm of Michael A. DeMayo, LLP v. Schwaba Law Firm (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-067-17, 8 pp.) (Mark Davis, J.) Appealed from Mecklenburg County Superior Court (Tanya Wallace, J.) N.C. App. Unpub.
Holding: After a personal-injury client rejected the $85,000 settlement offer negotiated by the plaintiff-law firm, the client fired plaintiff and was then represented by the defendant-law firm, which obtained a $100,000 settlement offer that the client accepted. Although the client’s contract with plaintiff required the client to pay plaintiff “95% of Plaintiff’s award had a settlement been reached,” since plaintiff offered the trial court “no means to determine an amount of award pursuant to quantum meruit,” we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff the sum of one dollar.
Affirmed.
The trial court used the appropriate factors from Guess v. Parrott, 160 N.C. App. 325, 585 S.E.2d 464 (2003) in evaluating plaintiff’s quantum meruit claim.
Plaintiff did not keep a record of the amount of time each attorney or paralegal spoke to or contacted the client. The client’s file “had 232 ‘touches’ [representing] the number of times the file was handled for any purpose.”
Plaintiff did not specifically challenge any of the trial court’s findings, including the finding that plaintiff had “offered this Court no means to determine an amount of award pursuant to quantum meruit,” so the trial court’s findings are binding on appeal, and we cannot find an abuse of discretion.
Affirmed.
