 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Lozano v. GTE Lenkurt Inc.6/20/1996
FLORES, Judge.
{1} Plaintiffs-Appellants Debbie Gonzales and Sylvia Sena (Appellants) appeal the district court's adoption of a special master's report which recommends the disbursement of a $2 million third-party settlement among 225 plaintiffs, their attorneys, and their workers' compensation carrier. Appellants raise five issues on appeal: (1) whether the district court erred in adopting the special master's report; (2) whether the district court erred in failing to order an accounting of expenditures from two trust accounts administered by their attorneys before it adopted the special master's report and entered a judgment allocating the proposed Dow Chemical Company (Dow) settlement; (3) whether the district court's allocation of the Dow settlement among the plaintiffs was arbitrary and capricious; (4) whether the district court erred in allocating additional reimbursement to GTE Lenkurt, Inc. (GTE); and (5) whether the district court erred in awarding $800,000 in attorney fees from the Dow settlement.
{2} GTE contests all but the last issue and raises as an additional issue whether this appeal should be dismissed because Appellants have failed to join necessary and indispensable parties. We reverse on the "accounting" issue and remand with instructions for the district court to order an accounting of disbursements from the GTE medical trust fund and from the Shell/DuPont settlement fund and to determine, based on that accounting, whether to award or withhold attorney fees. We affirm the judgment of the district court as to all other issues.
FACTS
{3} Appellants Sylvia Sena and Debbie Gonzales were employees of GTE from 1974 to 1985 and from 1976 to 1982, respectively. They were 2 of 123 workers on whose behalf attorney Josephine Rohr filed individual occupational disease and disablement (ODD) claims in the mid-1980s. In 1985, all the claims against GTE arising from exposure to toxic chemicals were consolidated. During the course of the ODD cases, Ms. Rohr associated with other attorneys, including the Maloney Law Firm from San Antonio, Texas. In 1987, 115 of the original plaintiffs settled their claims for a lump-sum payment of $2.5 million.
{4} The $2.5 million settlement was distributed in the following manner: (1) $1.2 million was paid to the workers in compensation benefits; (2) GTE placed $800,000 in a medical trust fund for payment of past and future medical expenses of the workers, to be administered by Ms. Rohr; and (3) $500,000 was paid in attorney fees and costs.
{5} In September 1987 the 115 workers in the ODD cases were joined by an additional 110 employees of GTE and, together they filed a third-party products liability action against the chemical companies that manufactured the chemicals used in the GTE plant. These companies included DuPont Chemical Company (DuPont), Shell Chemical Company (Shell), Dow, and other chemical manufacturers. Ms. Rohr and her associates represented all the plaintiffs.
{6} In 1990 DuPont settled with the plaintiffs for $1.5 million and Shell settled with the plaintiffs for $3 million. The settlement monies were distributed as follows: (1) $410,000 was paid to GTE in accordance with GTE's reimbursement right; (2) $1,192,500 was distributed to the plaintiffs at the rate of $5,300 per worker; (3) $1.8 million or forty percent of the settlement as specified in the contingency agreement between the plaintiffs and their attorneys, was allocated as attorney fees; and (4) $1,097,500 was paid to the Maloney Law Firm as reimbursement for costs advanced during the course of litigation. One million dollars of the attorney fees was placed in an escrow account to be used in litigation again
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 New Mexico Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|