Resnick v. Kaplan

Rule of Law:

Absent an agreement to the contrary, fees earned from completing the unfinished business of a dissolved partnership are assets of the partnership. The partners are not entitled to any extra compensation for their work in winding up these affairs and must distribute the fees according to their respective partnership shares.

Facts:

• Kaplan, Heyman, Engelman, Belgrad (the Kaplan group) and Resnick were partners in a law firm with a written partnership agreement that specified each partner's percentage share of profits.
• The partnership agreement did not contain any provision for the rights of the parties upon dissolution, including the division of fees from pending cases.
• The law firm dissolved on or about October 18, 1972.
• After dissolution, Resnick took approximately 150 of the former firm's pending cases, which were primarily contingent fee personal injury claims.
• Resnick settled a large percentage of these matters and received legal fees totaling $385,160.
• The Kaplan group also completed work on approximately 600 of the former firm's pending cases, collecting fees of $842,962.
• Neither Resnick nor the Kaplan group paid any portion of the fees they collected to the other party.

Procedural Posture:

• The Kaplan group (appellees) filed an action for an accounting against Resnick (appellant) in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, a state trial court.
• The Kaplan group filed a motion for partial summary judgment, arguing the collected fees should be allocated based on the partnership agreement's percentages.
• The Circuit Court granted partial summary judgment for the Kaplan group in the amount of $207,871.94 and for Resnick in the amount of $29,861.56 from an escrow account.
• The trial court determined there was no just reason for delay, making the partial summary judgments immediately appealable.
• Resnick, as the appellant, appealed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, an intermediate appellate court.