New York Struggling To “Save” Anti-Subrogation Law

Following closely on the heels of an unfavorable decision, state legislators in Albany wasted no time embarking on a rescue mission to save New York’s anti-subrogation statute from ERISA preemption. McKinney’s G.O.L. §§ 5-101 and 5-335. The statute, originally enacted in 2009, was purportedly an attempt to protect parties to settlements of tort claims from…

Read more

Subrogation And The “Oklahoma Option”

Drastic Re-Write of Comp Law Provides New Subrogation Options In the 1970s, the Oklahoma Sooners’ football team successfully began implementing a new offensive system known as the “option offense.” Sooner Coach Barry Switzer has been credited by many for having perfected the use of the wishbone offense, a staple of option offenses. Forty years later,…

Read more

Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Third-Party Dispute

If you think the recent Congressional civil war over cutting entitlements and spending, raising the debt ceiling (again), and funding Obamacare was a melee, welcome to the ongoing dispute in Pennsylvania over whether a workers’ compensation carrier can initiate the filing of a third-party lawsuit. It’s the usual suspects: trial lawyers vs. subrogation professionals. However,…

Read more

Missouri Occupational Disease Claims Once Again Compensable

Subrogation of Occupational Disease Claims Eliminated “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” – Al Pacino, Godfather III. In 2005, Missouri amended its statutes and divorced the compensability of occupational disease claims from its statutory workers’ compensation definitions of “accident” and “injury.” A few years later, in the case of…

Read more