Second District, Division 7 Upholds Attorney Lien Priority in Unpublished Decision.
For those of you needing a primer on how potent attorney’s charging liens can be, we refers you to the recent unpublished decision in Johnson v. Jones, Case No. B208858 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Sept. 24, 2009) (unpublished).
There, a judgment creditor intervened in an action to collect some proceeds to satisfy an outstanding judgment owed by a judgment debtor who himself hired attorneys to collect upon a judgment lien he had against an unrelated party. Judgment creditor did obtain a court order for payment of $72,000, but did not beat out judgment debtor’s attorneys to the tune of another $48,000. The trial court found that the attorney’s charging lien, even though later in time, “trumped” the judgment creditor’s lien.
This case has a nice discussion of the leading cases on attorney’s charging liens, and concludes public policy favored the priority of an attorney lien—after all, the judgment creditor might not have received anything but for the collection efforts of judgment debtor’s attorneys as against the unrelated party. (Waltrip v. Kimberlin, 164 Cal.App.4th 517. 525-526 (2008).)