Adding a 10 percent contingency fee for appellate work on top of the allowable maximum of one-third of damages awarded in personal injury trials is permissible, a split Appellate Division, First Department, ruled Tuesday.

In a 3-2 decision, the court validated a second retainer agreement in which plaintiff Shelton Stewart agreed to pay his attorneys 43 1/3 percent of his $5.1 million judgment against the New York City Transit Authority. The agency opposed the extra payment.

“Since the parties clearly excluded appellate work from the initial retainer and executed a second retainer providing for a separate fee for appellate work, it cannot be said that the award of an additional 10 percent contingency fee ran afoul of precedent or section 603.7(e) of the Rules of the Appellate Division, First Department, governing contingent fee arrangements,” Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels (See Profile) wrote for the majority,