AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• The Worker appealed from an order that denied her request to make the Employer fully responsible for the payment of attorney fees. This appeal arose from a stipulated compensation order related to attorney fees under NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-54 (2013), which involves a fee-shifting provision designed to encourage settlement and prevent litigation by imposing financial sanctions for rejecting reasonable offers of judgment if the rejecting party does not obtain a more favorable ruling (paras 2-3).

Procedural History

• [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

• Worker-Appellant: Argued that the Employer should be responsible for 100 percent of the attorney fees as per NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-54 (2013), because the Worker's offer was less than the amount awarded by the compensation order (para 2).
• Employer/Self Insured-Appellees: Opposed the Worker's request for fee-shifting, arguing that the unique facts of the case, particularly regarding medical evidence and causation, provided a good faith defense for not accepting the Worker's prior offers of judgment (para 4).

Legal Issues

• Whether the Employer should be responsible for 100 percent of the attorney fees under NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-54 (2013) when the Worker's offer was less than the amount awarded by the compensation order.
• Whether the Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ) had the discretion to deny the award based on a "good faith" exception despite the mandatory language of the statute.

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals reversed the order of the Workers’ Compensation Judge and remanded with instructions to recalculate the attorney fees award (para 6).

Reasons

• The panel, consisting of Judges Jacqueline R. Medina, Kristina Bogardus, and Jane B. Yohalem, unanimously found that the Workers’ Compensation Judge erred in denying the Worker's request for fee-shifting. The Court concluded that the mandatory fee-shifting provision under Section 52-1-54(F)(4) was triggered as the Worker's offers of judgment satisfied the statutory requirements: the offer was valid, for an amount less than that awarded at trial, and was rejected by the Employer. The Court held that the WCJ improperly introduced a "good faith" exception not present in the statute, contravening the legislative intent for the provision to be mandatory when its conditions are met. The Court relied on established case law that interprets the fee-shifting statute as mandatory, emphasizing that the statute's purpose is to encourage settlement and prevent litigation by penalizing the rejection of reasonable offers of judgment (paras 3-6).