[author: Wade Bredin]
The Delaware Supreme Court recently reinterpreted a section of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA) (19 Del. C. § 2301 et seq.) to allow employers and insurance providers to pursue liens on certain excess benefits recovered by injured employees. This rare reversal of precedent will effectively end a legal regime, which permitted some employees to enjoy “double recovery” following a workplace injury. Instead of workers obtaining claim benefits under multiple insurance policies paid for by their employers with no recourse for the employer, now employers and their insurance providers may file subrogation liens to limit the recovery.
In Horizon Servs., Inc. v. Henry, No. 172, 2022 (Del. 2023), the plaintiff received workers’ compensation benefits in addition to benefits he received from the policy of the motorist who caused the accident. The employee then sued to recover even more benefits under the uninsured motorist (UIM) policies of his employer’s car insurance and his own personal car insurance.
The suit arose when his employer and workers’ compensation carrier moved to place liens on the benefits recovered from the two UIM policies under the theory that the employee had already been compensated for his injury and that any additional funds received would constitute a “double recovery” by the employee. The Superior Court dismissed the action based on the Supreme Court’s prior interpretation of WCA § 2363(e) which explicitly barred employers and...
A former Connecticut nurse faces federal charges for allegedly defrauding the Medicaid program, submitting more than 15,000 claims and receiving payments totaling more than $1.3 million. Marisol R...