Opinion ID: 1196201
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the anatomy of tendered controversy

Text: ¶ 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. [6] 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.