
    Matter of the Application of Wilber C. Goodale, George W. Files and Richmond J. Reese, Comprising the Law Firm of Goodale, Files & Reese, to Enforce an Attorney’s Lien.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    March, 1908.)
    Attorney and client — The relation with the client — Lien — Right to lien — Persons and estates subject to lien — Attorney employed by real party in interest — Rot protected against settlement by nominal plaintiff.
    The attorneys for the plaintiff’s assignor for whose benefit an action is being prosecuted cannot insist upon the protection of their lien by summary order, where it is alleged the nominal plaintiff has made a collusive settlement, in the absence of proof of prejudice to the attorney’s rights.
    Appeal from an order of the City Court of the city of ISTew York denying the application of the above-named attorneys-at-law to set aside satisfactions of judgment and permitting them to issue execution for payment of their services and attorneys’ lien.
    Goodale, Files & Reese, for petitioners.
    Isidore Hershfield, for respondents.
   Bischoff, J.

Granting that the settlement of the actions and the satisfaction of the judgments by the nominal plaintiff was a fraud upon his assignor and that there is a fair suggestion of bad faith upon the defendant’s part, still the denial of the application to set aside the settlement, made at the instance of the plaintiff’s attorneys of record, was a proper exercise j>f discretion. The papers before the court below left no doubt of the fact that these attorneys were retained by and performed their services for the plaintiff’s assignor, whose solvency was undisputed and against whom their actual claim for compensation existed and still exists. It may well be that this assignor, Fusco, was hardly treated, and, of course, if there was a collusive settlement in actual fraud of his rights, he has his remedy against the defendant; but the attorneys are in no position to insist upon the' protection of their lien by summary order, since the fact of prejudice of their rights, in the matter of collecting payment for their services, an element essential to the application (Poole v. Belcha, 131 N. Y. 200), does not exist.

Gildeesleeve and MacLean, JJ., concur.

Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.  