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107 Ga. App. 397

130 S.E.2d 350

Feldman v. Edwards

Court of Appeals of Georgia

Decided February 8, 1963

Court of Appeals of Georgia · decided 1963-02-08

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““State Board of Workmen’s Compensation has authority to examine and approve contracts between claimants and their counsel as to the amount of attorneys fees but it has no authority ... to examine and approve contracts between attorneys as to the division of their fees when associated to represent claimants. The only contracts before the Board were the contracts between Edwards and the claimants and such were the only contracts that the board could examine.” (Citations omitted).”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Engel & Engel, P.A. v. Ingerman

“The State Board of [Workers’] Compensation has authority to examine and approve contracts between claimants and their counsel as to the amount of [attorney] fees but it has no authority, statutory or otherwise, to set the fees of the attorneys, or to examine and approve contracts between attorneys as to the division of their fees when associated to represent claimants.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 333 Ga. App. 167 - SMITH Et Al. v. WILLIAMS Et Al.

Relies on 71 Ga. App. 184 - Wilson v. Maryland Casualty Co. · 95 Ga. App. 23 - Fletcher v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1963-02-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently July 2015

7 state decisions

30196319701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Nichols, Presiding Judge.

¶1 Bruce B. Edwards represented the claimants in three workmen’s compensation proceedings and during the period that the litigation continued he associated Albert P. Feldman as associate counsel. Thereafter, lump sum agreements were approved by the board in each case. At the same time Edwards’ fee contracts with the claimants were approved and the payment of the attorney’s fees to Edwards and the balance due to the claimants was authorized and directed. Feldman then filed an application with the board asking the board to direct one-half of the attorney fees to be paid to him and when no action was taken by the board he filed an appeal to the superior court assigning error on the aforementioned lump sum award and on the refusal of the board to have a hearing to determine if he was entitled to a part of the attorney’s fees. The superior court entered judgments dismissing the appeals and Feldman now assigns error on such judgments and names himself as plaintiff in *398 error and Edwards, the claimants, the employer and the insurer as defendants in error. Held:

Decided February 8, 1963 Rehearing denied February 26, 1963. John W. Rogers, for plaintiff in error. Richard W. Best, Bruce B. Edwards, Marvin O’Neal, Jr., Frank W. Scroggins, contra.

¶2 The State Board of Workmen’s Compensation has authority to examine and approve contracts between claimants and their counsel as to the amount of attorney’s fees, but it has no authority, statutory or otherwise, to set the fees of the attorneys, or to examine and approve contracts between attorneys as to the division of their fees when associated to represent claimants. Fletcher v. Aetna Cas. &c. Co., 95 Ga. App. 23, 25 (96 SE2d 650); Wilson v. Maryland Cas. Co., 71 Ga. App. 184 (30 SE2d 420); Code Ann. §§ 114-714, 114-9903. The only contracts before the board were the contracts between Edwards and the claimants and such were the only contracts that the board could examine. The superior court properly dismissed the appeals based upon the above principles of law and because there were no issues of law upon which to predicate and base an appeal from the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation.

¶3 Judgments affirmed.

Frankum and Jordan, JJ., concur.
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