Opinion ID: 2172767
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exercise of Court's Discretion.

Text: The district court ordered Milwaukee Mutual to pay one-third of the amount it recovered under its lien. In setting fees under section 85.22(1), we have said a court should consider all the elements which have a bearing on attorney fees to be allowed in a given case including but not necessarily limited to the time spent, the nature and extent of the services, the amount involved, the difficulty of handling and importance of the issues, the responsibility assumed and the results obtained, as well as the professional standing and experience of the attorney. Under some circumstances a one-third contingent fee might be reasonable, but it should be based on the facts and circumstances of the particular case rather than the contract between the employee and his counsel. Kirkpatrick v. Patterson, 172 N.W.2d 259, 261 (Iowa 1969) (citations omitted). In Kirkpatrick, this court disapproved a fee order based solely on a contingent fee agreement, without an independent determination of reasonableness by the court. We remanded for a hearing to make that determination. Id. at 261-62. Milwaukee Mutual suggests that a similar problem exists here, pointing to the abbreviated ruling of the court which merely noted the length of the trial and its complexity, and concluded that a one-third fee was reasonable. We do not believe this case presents the same problems as Kirkpatrick. In contrast to that case, the record before the court here revealed a lengthy pretrial, trial, and appellate proceeding. (The judgment against the third party was affirmed by the court of appeals, reported as Farris v. General Growth Development Corp., 354 N.W.2d 251 (Iowa Ct.App.1984)). And, unlike the court in Kirkpatrick, the district court here made an independent determination of reasonableness. We believe that the determination was well supported by the record.