Workers’ Compensation

A huge segment of America’s service economy involves flexible, temporary, part-time, or freelance jobs—frequently involving professional employer organizations (PEO’s) or employee leasing companies. The “gig economy” is the labor market that relies on temporary and part-time positions filled by independent contractors, leased employees, and freelancers, rather than full-time permanent employees. Threading the needle of workers’…

Amy Alexander, et al. v. Nam Duong and Sentinel Insurance Company, Case No. 120,320 (Okla. App. December 2, 2022) Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation laws have endured a long and tortured constitutional tug-of-war between trial lawyers and business advocates/subrogation professionals. In 2011, Oklahoma completely overhauled its workers’ compensation laws, entitling the new legislation the “Workers’ Compensation Code.”[1]…

Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2022 WL 17491301 (Va. 2022) When two insurance companies or an insurance company and an employer (self-insured for workers’ compensation) enter into Arbitration Forum’s “Special Arbitration Agreement”, the workers’ compensation carrier may proceed in binding arbitration under Arbitration Forum’s Special Arbitration Forum to seek reimbursement and subrogation…

In addition to paying for medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, independent medical exam (IME) fees, expert fees, functional capacity evaluation charges, rehabilitation benefits, physician advisor fees, behavioral…

In addition to paying for medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, independent medical exam (IME) fees, expert fees, functional capacity evaluation charges, rehabilitation benefits, physician advisor fees, behavioral…

Pulitzer prize winning historian David McCullough once said that “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it is so hard.” When claims adjusters, subrogation professionals, and/or subrogation lawyers document a settlement or stipulation with an insured’s or employee’s attorney regarding a subrogation interest, getting all the right words in the…

Stowers v. Georgia Pacific, LLC, 2022 WL 903486 (Va. App. 2022). Trial lawyers in Virginia have been trying for decades to convince that state’s courts to rule that a workers’ compensation carrier is not subrogated to non-economic damages awarded or recovered in a third-party tort action. On March 29, 2022, the latest such effort was…

Ignores Supreme Court Decision Hinting Otherwise O’Brien v. Mobile Pub. Lib., 2022 WL 829245 (Ala. App. 2022). Workers’ compensation subrogation remains an intense struggle between the powers of good and evil; with insurance carriers attempting to preserve their rights to seek reimbursement of claim payments made necessary through the negligent acts of tortfeasors and the…

Loftus v. Katrina Decker: Appeal of Eastern Alliance Ins. Group, 2022 WL 711142 (Pa. Super. 2022) A March 10, 2022, Pennsylvania Superior Court appellate decision underscores why the cost of workers’ compensation insurance for small businesses is the highest in the northeast United States. In Loftus v. Decker, the workers’ compensation carrier (Eastern Alliance) paid…

Moranz v. Harbor Mall, LLC, 502 P.3d 488 (Haw. 2022) Workers’ compensation carriers doing business in Hawai’i held their collective breathe for 2021 waiting on the Supreme Court to decide whether it would incorporate the common law Made Whole Doctrine to workers’ compensation liens. The case, Moranz v. Harbor Mall, LLC had been silently before…