NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
The case of New Hampshire Insurance Company v. Rodriguez, No. 08-15-00173-CV, recently decided by the El Paso Court of Appeals, may have a huge impact on workers’ compensation insurance carriers’ subrogation lien rights to plaintiffs’ recoveries in 3rd party lawsuits. The case involved two potential employers, only one of which had workers’ compensation insurance which paid almost $2 million dollars in workers’ compensation benefits to the catastrophically injured worker. The worker sued both companies, and a jury apportioned the liability among the two companies and the worker. So far, so good. But then the trial judge found that the workers’ compensation insurance carrier’s right of subrogation against the total judgment had to be reduced by the dollar amount the jury attributed to the insured employer’s negligence. The court of appeals affirmed this methodology which, if the Texas Supreme Court allows this to stand as precedent, would mean that a carrier’s statutory lien interest would be reduced or extinguished altogether whenever a jury apportions negligence on an employer, even if the worker were to be awarded 100% of his damages. The greatest impact will be in the employee leasing context where there are often two potential entities who could be the employer of the injured worker for purposes of a personal injury claim.
- Copyright 2019,Jane Lipscomb Stone, Stone Loughlin & Swanson, LLP.