Art. 5097.Attorney Appointed to Represent Claimant In Worker's Compensation Case

Louisiana worker's compensation claimants sometimes need a court's blessing to compromise a claim or accept a lump-sum settlement, and Article 5097 addresses that narrow setting by pulling in select rules from earlier in this Chapter rather than restating them.

Specifically, Article 5097 applies Article 5092's qualification and no-suggestion rules, Article 5093's oath waiver and citation-acceptance rules, and Article 5098's protection of the proceeding's validity against an attorney's failure to perform duties, all to an attorney the court appoints to represent a claimant seeking authority to compromise or accept a lump-sum settlement. The attorney appointed for that purpose must be qualified to practice law in Louisiana, is chosen free of outside suggestion except where manifestly in the claimant's interest, needs no separate oath, and can act without a defect in performance necessarily undoing the resulting settlement authority.

Notably left out of that cross-reference are Articles 5094, 5095, and 5096, this Chapter's rules on notifying an absentee, defending the action, and compensation. Those articles are built around defending a lawsuit against an absent or unrepresented defendant, a different situation from assisting a worker's compensation claimant with a settlement, which explains why Article 5097 imports only the three provisions that fit that narrower role.