Georgia Supreme Court Allows Employer Negligence To Reduce Employee’s Recovery In Third-Party Actions

A new Georgia Supreme Court decision has made it easier to defend third-party tort actions involving injured employees by reducing the recoveries when employer negligence contributes the work-related injury. Walker v. Tensor Mach., Ltd., 2015 WL 7135149 (Ga. 2015). Jock L. Walker was injured at work in August 2010 while he operated a machine that…

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PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE: Amendment Proposed To Massachusetts’ Workers’ Compensation Subrogation Statute in Response to Judicial Activism

In the normal course of American jurisprudence, legislation is passed and courts decide cases according to the laws that have been passed. It seems that in Massachusetts, they have it backwards. Section 15 of the Massachusetts’ Workers’ Compensation Act provides unequivocally that in third-party tort cases, “the sum recovered shall be for the benefit of…

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Four Extra Years To File Your Minnesota Subrogation Claims

We receive many questions from clients regarding Minnesota subrogation claims, including relevant statutes of limitations. One of the most frequent questions I receive has to do with the Minnesota statute of limitations for personal injury actions. For subrogation professionals outside Minnesota, its statutory statutes of limitations may not be clear. A quick, surface reading of…

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Care Required When Drafting Workers’ Compensation Claim Settlements In Arizona

It is said that compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer. Workers’ compensation claim’s handlers depend on compromise in their handling of disputed compensation claims. Recently, however, we have seen a growing number of our clients settling workers’ compensation claims without taking proper precautions to protect valuable subrogation rights. They often assume that money paid…

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Massachusetts’ Legislature Attempts To Limit Workers’ Compensation Subrogation

It is entitled “An Act to clarify reimbursement of workers’ compensation insurers to prevent double recovery by injured workers in third-party cases”, but, as with most deceptive titles to pieces of legislation, it is more of a license for trial lawyers to destroy a time-honored right of reimbursement promised to small businesses across Massachusetts. In…

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Ohio Governor John Kasich Damages Subrogation Rights

Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich sure doesn’t act like a Republican. When a 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court made it relatively simple for states to reject Obamacare’s costly expansion of Medicare on the backs of state taxpayers, many governors took advantage of the opportunity. Not Governor Kasich. Despite emphasizing opposition to Obamacare in…

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South Dakota Supreme Court Decides Matter Of First Impression

Future Credit Reduced By Health Insurance Payments On April 1, 2015, the South Dakota Supreme Court declared for the first time that medical expenses paid by health insurance plans, and not by an injured employee personally, can be applied to the reduce the workers’ compensation carrier’s statutory future offset as established in S.D.C.L. § 62-4-38.…

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