Opinion ID: 1143264
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The trial court on remand should apportion attorney's fees on equitable principles.

Text: On remand (as upon proper motion after judgment in future cases), the court should proceed first to calculate a reasonable attorney's fee, a fee which reflects the total services rendered to both beneficiaries of the recovery. (3) Having fixed that fee, [17] the court must then make a reasonable apportionment of it between the parties benefitted by the recovery. [18] Such an apportionment will, of course, often involve only a relatively simple proportional calculation, but such simplicity will not be the invariable rule. The court should consider, for instance, whether the worker's attorney's efforts in disproving a defense under the rule announced in Witt v. Jackson (1961) 57 Cal.2d 57 [17 Cal. Rptr. 369, 366 P.2d 641], have accounted for a disproportionate amount of the litigation. Other factors may suggest themselves to the sound discretion of the courts, acting always under the guidance of the traditional equitable principles whose application we have examined above. [19] (2b) From the foregoing it appears that Fuchs v. Western Oil Fields Supply (1972) 25 Cal. App.3d 728 [102 Cal. Rptr. 74], and Moreno v. Venturini (1969) 1 Cal. App.3d 286 [81 Cal. Rptr. 551], which reached constructions of an analogous statute contrary to that here announced, are disapproved. [20] In conclusion, we point out that the employer asks us to abnegate the application of the equitable principle of apportionment which this court has recognized for many years; he asks us to assume that the Legislature has forbidden us to apply this principle in spite of the Legislature's clear expressions to the contrary. He asks us to construe a statute so as to require the injured worker to pay the lawyer's entire charge for a recovery, part of which will benefit only the employer. Yet if the employer receives his fair share of the recovery, he must bear his fair share of the cost of the recovery. The order of the trial court is reversed and the cause is remanded for a hearing on the setting and allocation of attorneys' fees in a manner consistent with the principles announced in this opinion.