For years, Alaska remained one of the last holdout states which had not provided any caselaw decisions to declare whether and what evidence of medical bill charges or payments could be introduced by the parties in a personal injury suit. In a personal injury case, was the “reasonable value” of medical bills incurred by the…
Bayham v. State of Louisiana, Through the Office of Group Benefits, 2019 WL 4073410 (La. App. 2019). In a line from the History Channel’s television series Vikings, Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok looks down at the village of Kattegat with his son and gives some advice regarding power: Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and…
The ink was barely dry on Florida Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in DeLisle v. Crane Co., 2018 WL 5075302 (Fla., Oct. 15, 2018). That decision declared Florida’s § 90.702 — which adopted the Daubert standard for the admission of expert testimony — unconstitutional and returned the state to the Frye standard which had been around…
It’s Like Taking Candy from a Very, Very Particular Baby Congress enacted the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) to provide workers’ compensation to specified employees of private maritime employers. 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950. The Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs administers this Act, just as it does the Federal Employment Compensation Act (FECA). 5…
Standard homeowner policies pay personal property claims at actual cash value (ACV), which is the replacement cost (RC) of the damaged property based on its current used condition. In other words, it is valued at what it would cost to replace the property at today’s cost minus depreciation: Replacement Cost Value (RCV) – Depreciation =…
Understanding Hospital Liens in All 50 States The advent, development, and implementation of hospital and health care provider lien laws in the U.S. is a subject which has permeated civil litigation and personal injury law. Simply put, a hospital or health care provider lien is a statutory lien enacted for the benefit of hospitals or…
Subrogation Rights Can Be Lost Before They Are Pursued. New Jersey common law employs an equitable doctrine known as the “Entire Controversy Doctrine” (ECD), which can be a trap for the unwary and used as a secret weapon to destroy subrogation claims. Similar to other states’ prohibitions against “splitting” a cause of action, this doctrine…
Most state workers’ compensation laws, or cases construing them, allow the employer and its carrier to waive its right to subrogate against a third party that caused or contributed to an employee’s injury. The purpose of a subrogation waiver is not well understood and is a subject of some confusion in the marketplace. Most frequently,…
The Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said that, “Chaos is the name we give order which produces confusion in our minds.” With that definition in mind, the July 3, 2019 Washington Supreme Court decision of Daniels v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 2019 WL 2909308 (Wash. July 3, 2019), is responsible for about as…
Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retail marketplace. In the subrogation world, it’s common knowledge that, in states that allow strict liability claims against entities in the supply chain, Amazon attempts to preclude any liability by arguing that it is not a “seller” of a product in question. Instead, Amazon has successfully argued that it…