New York: Court Sends $52K Fee Request Back to Board for Reconsideration

Vacating its earlier decision (reported at 187 A.D.3d 1297, 132 N.Y.S.3d 454 (2020), in which the New York appellate court had held the Board did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees of $1,000, instead of the $52,000 amount originally requested by claimant’s attorney, based upon the Board’s determination that the attorney had failed to file an OC-400.1 fee application with the WCLJ, the court said its review of the record indicated that the law firm had enclosed an OC-400.1 fee application with its application for Board review. The Court said that in as much as the Board’s decision indicated that the law firm failed to file such a form, it appeared the Board had not been aware of the apparent filing when it made its decision. Based on that finding, the appellate court remitted the case back to the Board for an appropriate determination.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Matter of Dzielski v New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision, 2021 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3990 (3d Dept. June 17, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 133.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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