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Our Eugene Oregon Bankruptcy Practice

Since 2005, Erin Uhlemann has helped individuals and families facing financial difficulties file for bankruptcy relief. Erin's compassion and understanding of the law have helped hundreds of Oregonians achieve a financial fresh start. She started Willamette Valley Bankruptcy to focus on helping clients with bankruptcy and debt issues in the Lane County Area. Erin understands that choosing a bankruptcy attorney who makes you feel comfortable and confident can be as difficult as deciding whether to file a bankruptcy case. Because she knows that filing bankruptcy is not something that you planned to do or look forward to doing, Erin strives to make the process as easy as possible.

Because most people facing bankruptcy do not have extra money to pay fees, Willamette Valley Bankruptcy offers low upfront fees and will work with you to set up affordable payment plans to pay attorney fees and court filing fees. Consultations are always free so that you can get the answers you need before making any sort of financial commitment. If you have questions about attorney fees and payment plans, you can call or email today to get these questions answered.

New York Adoption, Foster Care Litigation and Family Law

Rosin Steinhagen Mendel is a law firm dedicated to serving our clients in New York City, the surrounding counties in southern New York State, and in New Jersey, in the areas of adoption, foster care litigation, and family law.

We represent our clients in all types of proceedings that include termination of parental rights, permanency hearings, custody hearings, guardianship, administrative proceedings, and adoption. Our goal is to provide each of our clients with the best possible representation in all aspects of their cases, and clients appreciate our careful analysis of individual cases, through preparation and attention to detail. For over 35 years, our attorneys have represented adoptive parents, birth parents, foster parents, children, foster care agencies, and adoption agencies. We represent our clients in all types of proceedings that include termination of parental rights, permanency hearings, custody hearings, guardianship, administrative proceedings, and adoption.

Our goal for our lawyers is to provide each of our clients with the best possible representation in all aspects of their cases, and clients appreciate our careful analysis of individual cases, through our preparation and attention to detail.

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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.

Recent Updates

  • Court will decide if Trump has immunity in election interference case

    Court will decide if Trump has immunity in election interference case

    National News 04/26/2024

    Supreme Court arguments have begun over whether former President Donald Trump can avoid prosecution over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.The justices on Thursday took up for the first time whether a former preside...

  • Supreme Court will weigh banning homeless people from sleeping outside

    Supreme Court will weigh banning homeless people from sleeping outside

    Supreme Court News 04/21/2024

    The Supreme Court will consider Monday whether banning homeless people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on...

  • Court questions obstruction charges brought against Jan. 6 rioters and Trump

    Court questions obstruction charges brought against Jan. 6 rioters and Trump

    Headline Legal News 04/17/2024

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether federal prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. But it wasn’t clear how the justices would rule in a case that ...

  • What to know about abortion in Arizona under the near-total 1864 ban

    What to know about abortion in Arizona under the near-total 1864 ban

    Supreme Court News 04/12/2024

    The Arizona Supreme Court gave the go-ahead Tuesday to prepare to enforce a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions, drastically altering the legal landscape for terminating pregnancies in a state likely to have a key role in the presidential...

  • Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after embassy raid

    Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after embassy raid

    U.S. Court News 04/08/2024

    The Mexican president has quickly moved to break off diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a former vice president who had sought political asylum there after being indicted on corruption charges.In an ext...

  • Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after embassy raid

    Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after embassy raid

    National News 04/08/2024

    The Mexican president has quickly moved to break off diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a former vice president who had sought political asylum there after being indicted on corruption charges.In an ext...

  • Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has memoir coming

    Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has memoir coming

    National News 04/04/2024

    Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has a two-volume memoir coming out this fall, tracking his life from growing up in California to his 30 years on the court, when he cast key votes on landmark cases ranging from abortion to gay marriag...

  • Court to hear actor Smollett appeal of conviction for staging racist attack

    Court to hear actor Smollett appeal of conviction for staging racist attack

    Law Journals 03/31/2024

    The Illinois Supreme Court will hear an appeal of actor Jussie Smollett’s disorderly conduct conviction for staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself in 2019, then lying to Chicago police about it.The court on Wednesday accepted th...

  • Former Georgia insurance commissioner John Oxendine pleads guilty

    Former Georgia insurance commissioner John Oxendine pleads guilty

    U.S. Court News 03/26/2024

    John W. Oxendine of Johns Creek entered the guilty plea Friday in federal court in Atlanta. The 61-year-old had been indicted in May 2022 on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.The crime is puni...

  • Alabama woman who faked kidnapping pleads guilty to false reporting

    Alabama woman who faked kidnapping pleads guilty to false reporting

    Law Firm Marketing 03/22/2024

    An Alabama woman who claimed she was abducted after stopping her car to check on a wandering toddler pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of giving false information to law enforcement.News outlets reported that Carlee Russell pleaded guilty to misd...

  • A Supreme Court ruling in a social media case could set standards

    A Supreme Court ruling in a social media case could set standards

    U.S. Court News 03/18/2024

    In a busy term that could set standards for free speech in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Monday is taking up a dispute between Republican-led states and the Biden administration over how far the federal government can go to combat controversi...

  • Prosecutors seek from 40 to 50 years in prison for Sam Bankman-Fried

    Prosecutors seek from 40 to 50 years in prison for Sam Bankman-Fried

    U.S. Court News 03/15/2024

    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s orchestration of one of history’s largest financial frauds in his quest to dominate the cryptocurrency world deserves a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years, federal prosecutors on Friday told a federal judge....

Texas Adopts Statewide Texting-While-Driving Ban

Effective September 1, 2017, Texas will become the 47th state to pass a statewide ban on texting while driving. Governor Abbott’s signing of House Bill 62 is an effort to unify Texas under a uniform ban and remedy the “patchwork quilt of regulations that dictate driving practices in Texas.”

The bill specifically prohibits drivers from reading, writing, or sending an electronic message on a device unless the vehicle is stopped. That includes texting and emailing. It does not, however, prohibit dialing a number to call someone, talking on the phone using a hands-free device, or using the phone’s GPS system.

Violations would be punishable by a fine ranging from $25 to $99, to be set by each municipality. Although penalties could rise to as much as $200 for repeat offenders.

Studies have found that a driver’s reaction time is half as much when a driver is distracted by sending or reading a text message. According to state officials, in 2015 more than 105,000 traffic accidents in Texas involved distracted driving, leading to at least 476 fatalities.