Georgia abortion law challenge now focused on ‘personhood’
U.S. Court News
Lawyers for the state of Georgia urged a federal appeals court to allow the state’s 2019 abortion law to take effect now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
Ruling in a case out of Mississippi, the Supreme Court on June 24 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected the right to an abortion. Because the groups challenging Georgia’s law relied on that precedent, they “now have no case,” lawyers for the state wrote in a brief submitted Friday to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Attorneys for groups challenging the law acknowledged that the ruling allows the state’s ban on many abortions to take effect. But they argued in their brief that a provision that grants “personhood” to a fetus should remain blocked.
The Georgia law bans most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will eventually become the heart as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women realize they’re pregnant.
The Georgia law includes exceptions for rape and incest, as long as a police report is filed. It also provides for later abortions when the mother’s life is at risk or a serious medical condition renders a fetus unviable. The personhood provision gives a fetus the same legal rights as people have after birth.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.