Absent the legal mechanism to pursue a bad faith claim against a workers' compensation carrier, one of the only weapons in a claimant's arsenal to discourage the baseless denial of claims is that of the unreasonable contest counsel fee demand. Tragically, it is commonplace for an overly aggressive defendant to deny a claim with no factual or legal basis to do so. Claimants are routinely forced to needlessly prosecute a petition for benefits or otherwise oppose baseless defense petitions, which causes precious judicial resources to be misallocated and inflicts significant undue stress, mental anguish and financial distress on the injured worker.