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Wagner v. AGW Consultants5/24/2005
321-22, 334 (recognizing the rational government policy of maximizing claimants' awards in rejecting a procedural due process challenge to the ten dollar limitation on attorney fees for those seeking benefits for service-connected deaths or disabilities in Veterans Administration proceedings); cf. Mieras, 1996-NMCA-095, 39 (Hartz, J., specially concurring) (describing the severe restrictions on recovery in workers' compensation actions).
{26} Worker does not challenge these government purposes for the attorney fee limitation, but rather argues that the fee limitation is not rationally related to these purposes. Contrary to Worker's argument, we find there to be a firm legal rationale, supported by the record of this case, to justify the $12,500 attorney fee limitation as a rational means to achieving the Legislature's goals. As we recognized in Corn, it is certainly rational for the State to minimize the role of attorneys in seeking to maximize claimants' awards quickly and efficiently. 119 N.M. at 208, 889 P.2d at 243. In addition, as we have already noted, the fee limitation is important to maximizing the limited benefits available to workers, particularly when workers must generally pay half of their attorneys' fees. See ยง 52-1-54(J); Mieras, 1996-NMCA-095, 38 (Hartz, J., specially concurring); see also Corn, 199 N.M. at 207, 889 P.2d at 242.
{27} In this case, Worker 's $12,500 attorney fee award represented just under fifteen percent of Worker's total award, not including future medical benefits. This is well within the parameters that this Court has identified as generally appropriate for attorney fees in workers' compensation cases. Woodson v. Phillips Petroleum, 102 N.M. 333, 338, 695 P.2d 483, 488 (1985) (noting, inter alia, that in states that set attorney fees at some percentage of the worker 's recovery, ten to twenty percent is generally considered to be an appropriate range). On the other hand, the fee proposed by Worker's attorney was $61,125, or 407.5 hours at $150 an hour. In contrast to the generally accepted ratio of attorney fees to total recovery, this proposed fee would have amounted to roughly seventy-two percent of the Worker's total award, not including time spent on appeal. Further, of the $85,360 that the WCJ awarded to Worker, only $26,761 was for actual compensation, while the bulk of the award was to cover Worker's medical expenses. Because Worker would have been liable for half of his attorney's proposed fee of $61,125, Worker's attorney fees would have exceeded his actual compensation. Were we to strike the fee limitation, Worker would be required to deplete his entire compensation award and dig into his own pocket to pay his attorney fees. While we do not pass on whether such attorney fees were reasonable in this case, these figures certainly suggest that the attorney fee limitation of $12,500 is a rational means to maximize a worker's take-home award.
{28} Worker points to no legal authority or evidence in the record to show the $12,500 fee cap is an arbitrary and irrational means to achieve the State's objectives. For instance, there is no evidence in the record to suggest either what percentage of claimants approach or reach the fee limitation at the administrative level, or the typical amount of time expended by attorneys either at the administrative level or on appeal in such cases, to somehow demonstrate that $12,500 is an irrational figure. Cf. Corn, 119 N.M. at 208, 889 P.2d at 243 (finding that the WCA's data that less than one fifth of one percent exceeded the limitation undermined the State's rationale by showing a de minimus effect from the unilateral limitation). There is simply no evidence in the record to demonstrate that, other than in
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