United States Sixth Circuit

A ruling finding that a portion of the attorney's fees petitioner incurred in seeking workers' compensation did not shift to his employer under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the Act does not allow an employee to collect attorney's fees incurred before the employer has rejected the employee's claim; but 2) the Act does allow, and indeed requires, fee shifting from the time the employer rejects the employee's claim through the employee's successful prosecution of that claim.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/07/2008
• Published 03/07/2008

Judges

• Before: ROGERS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges;  BERTELSMAN, District Judge.

Court

• United States Sixth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:  Joshua Gillelan II, Longshore Claimants' National Law Center, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner.  Robert D. Nienhuis, Goldstein & Price, St. Louis, Missouri, Rita Roppolo, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., for Respondents.   ON BRIEF:  Joshua Gillelan II, Longshore Claimants' National Law Center, Washington, D.C., Steven C. Schletker, Steven Schletker, Attorney at Law, Covington, Kentucky, for Petitioner.   Robert D. Nienhuis, Goldstein & Price, St. Louis, Missouri, Rita Roppolo, Mark A. Reinhalter, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., for Respondents.