Senate confirms Michelle Childs to DC appeals court
U.S. Court News
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed the nomination of South Carolina jurist Michelle Childs — recently under consideration for a slot on the U.S. Supreme Court — to sit on the federal court typically seen as a proving ground for the nation’s highest bench.
Senators, including a number of Republicans, voted 64 to 34 to approve Childs’ nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 17-5 earlier this year to advance her nomination.
Childs, 56, has been a federal judge on South Carolina’s District Court for more than a decade. Earlier this year, she was on a short list of candidates being considered by President Joe Biden for an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, given the pending retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
Childs had a litany of high-profile advocates, including U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, on whose advice Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign to nominate a Black woman to the high court.
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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.