- Louisiana limits combined plaintiff attorney’s fees and expenses in comp subrogation to a max ONE THIRD of the employer/insuror’s lien PLUS you get a future credit against further comp payments equal to the net amount disbursed to the claimant PROVIDED you have intervened into any third party suit! Don’t let this opportunity slip you by!
- Mississippi pays back the employer/insurer 100% of the lien amount without any pro-rata deduction for plaintiff attorney’s fees and expenses. That’s right – 100%. The attorney deducts his full fee and all of his expenses right off the top of any settlement or judgment, then the comp payor gets their full lien reimburse; all monies remaining go to the claimant. But don’t forget: thanks to a recent Mississippi Supreme Court ruling, you do have to intervene into any suit to get any recovery at all.
- North Carolina allows the comp carrier to recover from any UM or UIM policy, even if it is the claimant’s personal policy. Don’t miss that chance. Not many states allow it and North Carolina does not allow the grievous “No benefit to any workers’ compensation provider” exclusion to appear in policies issued in that state.
- In Arkansas you could get sued just for sending out a “Notice of Lien” letter! That’s correct. The all-knowing Arkansas Supreme Court taking their terrible Made Whole approach ad absurdium has now held that an employer/insurer has no lien unless and until (1) the claimant says you do or (2) a court rules you do AND to tell any party you have a workers’ compensation lien when neither of these has yet occurred would be to give out false information. Check it out.
- Tennessee is such a great state for workers’ compensation subrogation EXCEPT WHEN the claim has a very real loss of consortium claim to it. Loss of consortium payments as part of any third party settlement are NOT part of any money available for satisfaction of an employer/insuror’s lien. So careful that you don’t get gerrymandered right out of a nice settlement amount. Better to have solid legal representation on your side in such cases.
- In Alabama, you get a future credit equal to what the claimant nets in any third party settlement BUT you have to pay attorney’s fees and pro-rata expenses on that credit just as you do on real money – even if you are not sure how much of that credit you really need or want. Tough law to dance around.
Every state has its own idiosyncratic set of subrogation laws. Trust a professional recovery firm. Trust Resolution Services, Inc.
