Court Opinion

ID: 9550471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:35:43.454758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:34.633680
License: Public Domain

OPINION WALTERS, Judge.  Summary judgments were entered on plaintiff-widow’s two-count complaint. Her appeal from judgment on Count I was untimely. Judgment was entered in August 1978, the trial court determining there was no reason to delay a final judgment on that count, R.Civ.P. 54(b)(1), and her notice of appeal was filed more than thirty days later, in January 1979. Rule 3(a), N.M.R. App.R., Civil. When the notice of appeal is not timely filed, the court has no jurisdiction to consider the merits of the issue raised. See Mabrey v. Mobil Oil Corp., 84 N.M. 272, 502 P.2d 297 (Ct.App.1972). Thus the summary judgment entered on Count I is affirmed. On January 22, 1979, Mountain States Mutual Casualty Company was awarded summary judgment on Count II. In that count plaintiff alleged that a settlement agreement had been reached between the workman’s attorney and the compensation carrier for a lump-sum amount to be paid in lieu of weekly payments of total permanent disability compensation. It appears from the depositions taken in the matter that the workman died from an unrelated disease during negotiations, before the alleged agreement was reached. The matter of an attorney’s fee remained to be settled. Mountain States denied that a lump-sum agreement had been made but argued successfully below that, nevertheless, the attorney’s authority to contract on behalf of the workman was revoked by the workman’s death; that an agreement, if any, had not been reached prior to the death of the workman; and that its obligation to pay compensation benefits, in any event, terminated upon the workman’s death. Section 52-l-47(C), N.M.S.A.1978. It is plaintiff’s position that the general rule, i. e., that agency is terminated by death of the principal, should not apply in the instant case because neither the agent (Brazfield’s attorney) nor the adjuster were aware of Brazfield’s death at the time the settlement allegedly was negotiated. Defendant cites cases holding to the contrary. None of the cases to which we are referred speak to the agency of an attorney in a workmen’s compensation suit or in connection with New Mexico’s statutory scheme governing the special procedures, rights and remedies inherent in such suits. This case is not one in which the plaintiff seeks a widow’s entitlement for death caused by the injury for which her husband had been receiving compensation. The record is clear that Mr. Brazfield died of an unrelated physical condition. The only issue to be resolved is whether the attorney’s agency terminated with Brazfield’s death. If it did, the summary judgment on Count II must also be affirmed. If it did not, the matter must be returned to the trial court to determine whether a compromise lump-sum settlement had been agreed upon by the agent and the insurer which will enure to the workman’s estate. On the question of termination of agency by death, no New Mexico cases were cited to us by the parties and we have been able to find only one. In re Ward’s Estate, 47 N.M. 55, 134 P.2d 539 (1943), which discussed the question. In that case, a broker had been engaged to sell property for his principal. Noting that at the time of the principal’s death the agent had not been successful in obtaining a sale or furnishing a ready buyer, “and his power to sell not being coupled with an interest,” the court held the agency revoked by reason of the principal’s death. Thus, although some jurisdictions have applied a rule that if one deals with an agent in good faith and in ignorance of the principal’s death, revocation of agency by death takes effect only from the time the agent has notice of this principal’s death,1 it is implied in Ward’s Estate that New Mexico requires the agency to be coupled with an interest to create an irrevocable agency. Professor Williston says, at § 280 in his treatise, 2 Williston on Contracts, 3d ed., (edited by Professor Jaeger): The great weight of authority recognizes this exception to the rule that the death of the principal revokes the authority of the agent appointed by him. See also Annot., What constitutes power coupled with interest within rule as to termination of agency, 28 A.L.R.2d 1243, et seq. In workmen’s compensation suits, attorneys fees awarded for successful representation of injured claimants are recoverable against the employer as a separate and distinct award, apart from the workman’s award. Section 52-l-54(B), (C), (D) and (E),' N.M.S.A.1978. The attorney’s interest, therefore, is not given for a debt owed by the workman; nor is his interest strictly in the subject matter of the power, i. e., the right to sue or settle on behalf of his client for a work-related injury. But it is solidly fused to the exercise of that right by the principal. The interest certainly is not an interest in the proceeds to be received by his principal; it is a statutorily-created interest peculiarly personal to the attorney, and separate from the workman’s award. In this case, the depositions disclose that the parties were negotiating for a separate payment of attorney’s fees; that client and attorney had agreed to a fee equal to 10% of any amount Brazfield received, or whatever larger amount the court might award if a claim for lump-sum settlement were litigated. No case we have found dealing with the agent’s interest has been concerned with “split” proceeds — two discrete recoveries. Obviously, in New Mexico, the lawyer’s role in workman’s compensation cases is a unique form of agency insofar as his personal interest in the subject matter is concerned. It is through his status as an agent that he obtains the interest granted by statute, his fee; he cannot assert that interest unless the principal pursues his rights in the subject matter, in which the agent has no personal entitlement. The lawyer’s interest, a fortiori, is inextricably tied to and a part of the subject matter for which the relationship of principal and agent is entered into. The protection given to this vested and peculiar interest of the workman’s attorney was most recently reinforced by our Supreme Court in Herndon v. Albuquerque Public Schools, 92 N.M. 287, 587 P.2d 434 (1978), wherein the trial court was ordered to award attorney fees as an assurance for avoiding the “chilling effect upon the ability of an injured party to obtain adequate representation” which would result from denial of such fees.  Nevertheless, there is no avoiding the clear language of the statute which terminates disability compensation benefits upon the death of the injured workman. If there were no benefits available to Mr. Brazfield’s estate after his death, there could be no separate fee recovery available to his attorney. Section 52-1-54, N.M.S.A. 1978. In such circumstances there is no interest distinct from the attorney’s power to settle which survives the workman’s death. Holding, therefore, that the attorney’s power was not coupled with an interest, the summary judgment on Count II is. affirmed. IT IS SO ORDERED. WOOD, C. J., specially concurs. SUTIN, J., concurs in part and dissents in part.  . E. g., Catlin v. Reed, 141 Okla. 14, 283 P. 549 (1930); Meinhardt v. Neuman, 71 Neb. 532, 99 N.W. 261 (1904); DeWeese v. Muff, 57 Neb. 17, 77 N.W. 361 (1898); Moore v. Hall, 48 Mich. 143, 11 N.W. 844 (1882).