Committee on Legal Ethics of the West Virginia State Bar v. Coleman

McHUGH, Chief Justice:

This case raises initially the question of whether the workers’ compensation statute limiting an attorney’s fee is applicable to an award of permanent total disability benefits in such a manner that the accrued benefits are not a separate award from the future benefits. Should we answer that question in the affirmative, the second question raised in this case is whether an attorney is subject to discipline for charging and collecting “an illegal or clearly excessive fee” when the attorney has in good faith interpreted the aforementioned statute as authorizing separate…