Jury says law firm owes $123K in contingent fees to lawyer; award is then doubled under wage statute
A Connecticut personal injury attorney who claimed his former law firm employer failed to pay him his full share of contingency fees in two cases got a state-court jury verdict for all he was owed, and more.
Plaintiff lawyer Robert Healey not only won a jury award for the $123,550 he said he was owed. He also saw that award doubled to $247,100.
That’s because a state law provides for unpaid wages to be doubled when the employer cannot show that it acted in good faith, reports the Hartford Courant. Healey fell under the statute’s ambit because he worked part-time for the defendant after retiring from full-time practice at the beginning of 2013.
The jury also awarded Healey another $8,030 for an unpaid referral fee, plus $7,800 because the firm continued to use his name and image in advertising after their employment arrangement ceased at the beginning of April 2013. The total amount awarded by the jury in the Hartford Superior Court case was thus $262,930.
The newspaper said it couldn’t reach attorney John Haymond or the firm’s legal counsel in the case, Leon Rosenblatt, on Friday to comment on the Oct. 29 verdict.
