YEISER
v.
DYSART, ET AL.
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An attorney challenged his suspension from practice, which required him to refund a $620 fee received for services under a state workers' compensation statute, arguing that the fee restriction violated his liberty of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed the suspension, holding that a state may reasonably restrict attorney fees in statutory compensation cases to protect vulnerable workers from improvident contracts, and that such restrictions are valid conditions attached to the state-granted license to practice law.
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Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the Court.
Upon a report of the respondents, a committee of members of the bar, the plaintiff in error was ordered to be suspended. from the right .to practise, as attorney unless "he should refund to a client a fee. received by him of $620 and interest within a time fixed.' The ground of the order was that by § 3031, Comp. St. 1922, only such sum could be demanded for services in bringing a suit under the workmen’s compensation act of the State as the Court should allow, and that a contract for other and further pay was void. The Supreme Court of the State, while crediting the plaintiff in error with an honest belief that the statute had a narrower meaning, made the order complained of, and the case is brought hepe on a contention that the statute as construed unreasonably restricts the liberty of contract and contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving the plaintiff in error of his liberty and property without due process of law.
The plaintiff in error recognizes that this Court is bound by the construction given to the State law by the State Court, yet wastes a good deal of . argument in the effort to prove the construction wrong. When the con-, stitutional' question is reached, late cases are relied upon ;for the general proposition that unreasonable interference with freedom of contract cannot be sustained. Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U. S. 525; Charles Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations, 262 U. S.
522. But the question is specific, whether wé can pronounce this law unreasonable, against the opinion of the legislature and Supreme Court of the State. The Court adverts to .the fact that a large proportion of those who come under the statute-have to look to it in case of injury and need to be protected against improvident contracts, in the interest npt only of themselves and their families but of the public. A somewhat similar principle has been sanctioned by this Court. Calhoun v. Massie, 253 U. S.
170. When we add the considerations that an attorney practises under a license from the State and that the subject matter is a right created by.statute, it is obvious that the Sta-te may attach such conditions to the license in respect of such matters as it believes to be necessary in order to make it a public good. Of course a reasonable time from the issue of the mandate of this Court will be^ allowed for the plaintiff in error to comply with the judgment affirmed.
Judgment Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (11 total)
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Samaha v. State, 389 So. 2d 639 (Fla. 1980)…ate interest in regulating attorney fees in workmen’s compensation cases. Every assault on statutes regulating attorney fees in workmen’s compensation cases that we have seen has been successfully resisted. In Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U.S. [*641] 540, 45 S.Ct. 399, 69 L.Ed.2d 775 (1925), the United States Supreme Court affirmed a ruling of the Nebraska Supreme Court3 that a similar statute was a proper exercise of the police power of the state and was not repugnant to the provisions of the federal constitutio…
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Khoury v. Carvel Homes S., Inc., 403 So. 2d 1043 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981)…seriously impairs the right of claimants to obtain compensation benefits due to them in what has become a complex area of the law, thereby penalizing, rather than protecting, the injured worker. I respectfully dissent. . Compare, Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U.S. 540, 45 S.Ct. 399, 69 L.Ed. 775 (1925), cited by the majority, wherein the client sought the aid of the court to obtain the refund of a fee claimed by the client to be contrary to the agreement of the parties, which the attorney had subtracted from a wo…1 / 2
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Jacobson v. Se. Pers. Leasing, 113 So. 3d 1042 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013)…tute governing forfeiture of public land sale contracts for nonpayment of interest, that Legislature has “wide discretion” in determining what is necessary to protect general welfare of people in association with police power); cf. Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U.S. 540, 541, 45 S.Ct. 399, 69 L.Ed. 775 (1925) (observing, in reviewing suspension of attorney’s license, that Supreme Court was bound by Nebraska’s supreme court interpretation of Nebraska law restricting workers’ compensation fee; holding restriction did…1 / 2
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Adkins v. Child's. Hosp. of the Dist. of Columbia, 261 U.S. 525 (U.S. 1923)
- Chas. Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Indus. Relations of the State of Kan., 262 U.S. 522 (U.S. 1923)
- Calhoun v. Massie, 253 U.S. 170 (U.S. 1920)