On December 11, 2017, the New Jersey Supreme Court handed injured employees and struggling small businesses in New Jersey a huge victory. In Vitale v. Schering-Plough Corp., A-20-16; 078294 (N.J. December 11, 2017), the Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s ruling that a contractual limitation on the right of an employee to sue a…
Insurers Seek Reimbursement for the High Cost of Opioid Addictions Big Pharma is having a Big Tobacco moment. Since 1999, the number of prescription opioids sold in America has almost quadrupled. Over the same period, prescription opioid deaths have more than quadrupled and millions have become addicted to legally-prescribed painkillers that are 50 times more powerful…
There is seemingly no end to the attacks on a workers’ compensation carrier’s rights of subrogation and reimbursement when a third-party is liable for a work-related injury. In New Jersey, however, the Supreme Court will soon be deciding whether even the employee is prohibited from suing a customer of his employer, when forced to sign a…
In May 2016, we published an article listing the ten best and the ten worst states for subrogating workers’ compensation. Arizona was near the top because it didn’t allow reduction of the carrier’s lien for attorneys’ fees and provided for reimbursement of the carrier “off the top” of a third-party recovery. It didn’t make the…
It seems that there are no lengths parties won’t go to in order to destroy what they perceive as the evil known as “subrogation.” Workers’ compensation subrogation professionals in Pennsylvania are familiar with the saga of the Domtar case, which began in 2013 and culminated in 2015 with the Supreme Court announcing that although §…
Plaintiff-friendly judges and legislators in various states have gained strength and influence over the last twenty years, resulting in statutes and court decisions inimical to the subrogation and reimbursement rights of workers’ compensation carriers. North Dakota is fighting back. On March 13, 2017, the North Dakota legislature amended § 65-01-09, North Dakota’s workers’ compensation subrogation…
Nebraska has recently become a battleground in the war against workers’ compensation subrogation being waged by trial lawyers. Nebraska is a “tweener” when it comes to workers’ compensation subrogation. It doesn’t provide a carrier with a first money right to recovery of third-party proceeds, as most states do, but neither does it employ a version…
Words matter. On May 22, 2017, the Ohio Court of Appeals paid attention to the specific wording in the Workers’ Compensation Act and ignored the traditional definition given to the term “third party” in workers’ compensation subrogation settings. In McKinney v. Omni Die Casting, Inc., 2017 Ohio – 2949 (Ohio App. 2017), it held for…
In Nevada, when a workers’ compensation carrier is subrogated to the rights of the worker under § 616C.215, the carrier has a lien on the “total proceeds” of any third-party recovery. N.R.S. § 616C.215(5). This is true whether the recovery is by way of judgment, settlement or otherwise. Id. The statute is very clear on this…
A long-standing controversy has been resolved and a major anti-subrogation obstacle in Pennsylvania has been overcome. The proverbial light bulb has gone on in the Quaker State. The ongoing debate in Pennsylvania over whether a workers’ compensation carrier can initiate the filing of a third-party lawsuit is finally over. The answer is “yes” and we…