Samuel A. Miller v. Gilbert Robinson, Trustee, Etc.

The order of the district court affirming the referee’s orders allowing an attorney’s fee of $7,500 against a bankrupt estate is affirmed.

The appellant requested a fee of $17,500. This court recognizes that time alone is not the only factor in setting fees where the lawyer has successfully brought the bankrupt estate through a difficult storm. Here much of the claimed amount would have to be justified in the result of disallowance of claims to the extent of about $650,000. Much of that figure rests in one claim. If the referee had allowed $17,500, we might approve it. We do not know. But he was in a far better position than we to appraise how valuable appellant Miller’s services were in reducing the asserted claims; that is, to know whether the accomplishment was an easy or difficult one. Certainly there was no extensive in-court litigation. We simply do not find clearly erroneous the determinations heretofore made.

There are no separate findings of fact or conclusions of law. They must be found within the corners of the two opinions by the referee. Appellant attacks them as insufficient. Although a little equivocal, the opinion does say that “a large portion of the services of…