Ashcraft and Gerel v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, a law partnership, sued to collect a legal fee assertedly owing from appellee, a workmen’s compensation insurance carrier for a local employer. The fee was said to have been earned by reason of appellant’s professional exertions in pressing the injured employee’s 1 claim for negligence against a third party, resulting in a settlement large enough both to cover appellee’s total payments to the employee under the workmen’s compensation law and to provide, after the deduction of legal fees, a substantial excess for the employee over those payments. The District…