Rowland v. City of Tulsa

• Citation: 1999 OK 75,988 P.2d 1282
• Decision Date: 21 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 88,288.,88,288.
• Parties: Willie B. ROWLAND, Petitioner, v. CITY OF TULSA and The Oklahoma Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.
• Court: Supreme Court of Oklahoma

988 P.2d 1282

1999 OK 75

Willie B. ROWLAND, Petitioner, v. CITY OF TULSA and The Oklahoma Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.

No. 88,288.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

September 21, 1999.

Willie B. Rowland, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Pro Se Petitioner.

Susan H. Jones, Tulsa, Oklahoma, For Wilson Jones, P.C., specially appearing.

HODGES, J.

¶ 1 The issue in this case is whether the Workers' Compensation Court's order on which this appeal is based, in so far as it purports to adjudicate the amount of attorney fees, is an appealable order subject to this Court's review. We find that the issue of the proper amount of attorney fees remains pending before the Workers' Compensation Court and, as such, is not ripe for review by the appellate courts.

I. Facts

¶ 2 On April 2, 1992, the Workers' Compensation Court found Willie B. Rowland (Rowland) to be permanently totally disabled and awarded Rowland $208.27 per week in compensation and back compensation of $2,707.51. Wilson Jones (Jones), the respondent in this appeal and Rowland's attorney at the time of the award, was paid a twenty percent lump sum fee of $20,827.00 by Rowland's employer, the City of Tulsa (City). The City was to recoup the lump-sum attorney fee payment by deducting ten percent of Rowland's weekly award until the total was recovered.

¶ 3 On February 16, 1996, Rowland and the employer entered into an agreement whereby Rowland was paid $135,000.00 in exchange for releasing the City from the remainder of the payments under the 1992 order. The agreement provided for a reduction of the $135,000.00 by twenty percent for attorney fees. The settlement worksheet, signed by both Rowland and Jones, shows that Jones was paid attorney fees of $22,840.00 out of the $135,000.00 settlement. The $22,840.00 represents the amount of $27,000.00, which is twenty percent of $135,000.00, less the amount that Rowland had reimbursed the City of the $20,827.00 lumpsum fee previously paid to Jones.

¶ 4 Before the order approving the agreement was filed of record, Rowland sent a letter to the administrator and the presiding judge for the Workers' Compensation Court. The letter was received by both the judge and the administrator on March 6, 1996. In his letter, Rowland alleged that under the agreement his attorney would receive more than the statutorily allowed twenty percent of the award. On March 12, 1996, an order was filed approving the joint settlement agreement.

¶ 5 Rowland's letter was treated as a motion to modify the order approving the joint settlement, and a hearing was held on May 30, 1996. Four months later, on September 27, the trial tribunal ruled that it did not have authority to modify the order approving the settlement more than twenty days after the order was mailed to the parties. The Court of Civil Appeals sustained the trial court's decision denying Rowland relief. This Court granted certiorari.¹

II. Analysis

¶ 6 The Workers' Compensation Court treated Rowland's letter as a motion to modify its order approving the settlement agreement. Neither the fact that the request for relief was in the form of a letter nor the treatment given it by the Workers' Compensation Court is determinative of its true nature. Rowland states in the letter that he is asking for a hearing on the amount of attorney fees and stating that under the agreement his attorney would receive more than the statutory maximum. The letter not only requests a hearing but revokes Rowland's consent to the amount of attorney fees as recited in the joint agreement.

¶ 7 The basis of a joint petition settlement is the parties' agreement to its terms. After Rowland suspected that the settlement allowed an attorney fee in excess of the statutory maximum,² he withdrew his consent to the amount of attorney fees and requested review of the matter. After he withdrew his consent to the amount of attorney fees, the joint petition settlement in so far as it settled the amount of attorney fees was no longer before the trial tribunal for its approval.

¶ 8 In cases such as this where the issue of attorney fees is in controversy, a judge of the Workers' Compensation Court must hear and consider all the evidence pertaining to the issue.³ After the hearing, the judge enters an order determining the proper amount of attorney fees.⁴ Only after an order adjudicating the issue is entered does the matter become ripe for appeal.⁵ Because, in the present case, the amount of attorney fees was never properly presented for approval to or adjudicated by the Workers' Compensation Court, the order of March 12, 1996, was a nullity as to attorney fees, and this Court lacks appellate jurisdiction of the matter.

¶ 9 The trial tribunal and the Court of Civil Appeals both found that the Workers' Compensation Court was without authority to modify the order under section 3.6 of title 85. Section 3.6 states that an order of the Workers' Compensation Court becomes final twenty days after a copy is mailed to the parties.⁶ Because Rowland revoked the part of the joint petition settlement addressing attorney fees before an approval order was filed, the twenty day time period did not begin to run as to the matter of the amount of attorney fees.⁷ Thus, the Workers' Compensation Court and the Court of Civil Appeals erred.

III. Conclusion

¶ 10 Because the order appealed from in the present case was not ripe for review by the appellate courts as to the amount of attorney fees, the Court of Civil Appeal was without jurisdiction to determine the merits of the appeal. The Court of Civil Appeals' opinion is vacated. The appeal is dismissed for lack of an appealable order. The letter seeking review should be treated as revoking the joint petition settlement as to the amount of attorney fees, leaving the issue pending before the Workers' Compensation Court.

CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED; COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION VACATED; APPEAL DISMISSED FOR LACK OF APPELLATE JURISDICTION; MATTER REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS.

¶ 11 SUMMERS, C.J., HARGRAVE, V.C.J., LAVENDER, SIMMS, KAUGER, WATT, JJ.—concur.

¶ 12 OPALA, J.—dissents.

OPALA, J., dissenting.

¶ 1 The court vacates today the trial tribunal's order refusing to consider—for perceived want of jurisdiction over the § 84 approval order⁸—the claimant's post-settlement application for a fee-quantum inquiry. It remands the claimant's request with directions to grant a hearing. While I do not recede from the court's ultimate disposition of the cause by today's remand, I write in dissent to afford the Workers' Compensation Court and its bar some insights into the underlying problem at hand and to suggest several solutions that would better secure the stability and finality of settlements. My refusal to join the court's opinion is prompted by grave concerns over its anemic treatment of the critical analytical underpinnings for vacating the trial tribunal's order. Today's vacation will tend to eclipse rather than unveil the urgent need for an improved ground-level supervision of the § 84 settlement process.⁹

¶ 2 The court's conclusion that the counsel-fee issue remains pending before the trial tribunal seems to rest on its mistaken notion that this claimant had timely revoked his earlier consent to a twenty-percent fee. That is not my view. Claimant's 6 March 1996 letter to the trial tribunal reveals only that there was then a pending controversy in which he stood in a posture adversarial to that of his lawyer over the quantum to be deducted from the achieved settlement. Bearing no stamp that would provide certified proof of its mailing, the March 12 order facially lacks the statutorily mandated indicium of finality for want of compliance with the provisions of 85 O.S.Supp.1994 § 3.6.¹⁰ That deficiency is plainly apparent from an inspection of the trial tribunal's record.¹¹The critical fact here is not that the letter-request for a hearing had timely reached the trial tribunal, but rather that the fee allocation (recited in the settlement-approval order) cannot operate as a final adjudication imposing a cognizance-anchored bar of the fee quantum's further re-examination in the trial tribunal. The § 3.6 twenty-day jurisdictional cutoff had neither been triggered nor had its bar dropped when the assigned judge reached for hearing the claimant's letter-request.¹² In short, critical to today's disposition by remand is not the time claimant's letter was filed, but the trial tribunal's then-retained jurisdiction over its earlier March 12 order.

I THE ANATOMY OF TENDERED CONTROVERSY

¶ 3 Claimant sustained on-the-job injuries when working for the City of Tulsa. Finding his impairment to be permanent and total, the Workers' Compensation Court allowed him benefits and allocated a twenty-percent attorney's fee authorized by the terms of 85 O.S.Supp.1994 § 30.¹³ The employer and claimant later entered into an agreement (on 16 February 1996) for a final lump-sum settlement. By the trial tribunal's 12 March 1996 joint-petition approval order, which was never sent to the parties, claimant's attorney was allowed twenty-percent of the settlement amount. In his 6 March 1996 letter to the presiding judge, claimant sought an adversarial hearing for determination of the fee's quantum, urging that his lawyer's allocated fee was excessive. The Workers' Compensation Court concluded (by its order of 27 September 1996) the fee amount set aside by the settlement-approval order could not be modified because more than twenty days had passed since the order's entry. The Court of Civil Appeals sustained the trial tribunal's ruling. The case is now before us on claimant's certiorari quest.

II FERGUSON¹⁴ AND SNYDER¹⁵—THE TWO CASES WHICH MOST RECENTLY PRONOUNCED THE 20-DAY JURISDICTIONAL CUTOFF— DO NOT APPLY HERE TO BAR THE TRIAL TRIBUNAL'S COGNIZANCE OVER THE FEE-QUANTUM CONTROVERSY; BY ITS FAILURE TO SEND CLAIMANT A COPY OF THE SETTLEMENT-APPROVAL ORDER, THE TRIAL TRIBUNAL RETAINED COGNIZANCE OVER THE FEE DISPUTE...