High court to hear appeal in case of jilted woman
Headline Legal News
The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a jilted woman who was convicted under an anti-terrorism law for spreading deadly chemicals around the home of her husband's mistress.
The justices said in an order Friday that they will revisit the case of Carol Anne Bond, a Pennsylvania woman who was given a six-year prison term for violating a federal law involving the use of chemical weapons.
In 2011, the court unanimously sided with Bond to allow her to challenge her conviction despite arguments from federal prosecutors and judges that she shouldn't even be allowed to appeal the verdict. Lower courts subsequently rejected the appeal.
Bond, from Lansdale, Pa., near Philadelphia, says she is in prison over a domestic dispute that resulted in a thumb burn for a onetime friend who became her husband's lover. Bond was convicted in federal court of trying to poison the woman by spreading toxic chemicals around her house and car and on her mailbox.
Her argument is that the case should have been dealt with by local authorities, as most crimes are. Instead, a federal grand jury indicted her on two counts of possessing and using a chemical weapon. The charges were based on a federal anti-terrorism law passed to fulfill the United States' international treaty obligations under the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction.
Related listings
-
Lohan lawyer in NYC courthouse in nightclub case
Headline Legal News 01/11/2013Lindsay Lohan's attorney has gone to a New York City courthouse in connection with the actress's alleged fight at a Manhattan nightclub. Lohan was arrested on a charge of misdemeanor assault in the Nov. 29 incident at the club Avenue. Office of Court...
-
Ohio schools officer to plead guilty to sex charge
Headline Legal News 12/27/2012A former Ohio school resource police officer is pleading guilty to a charge that he coerced sexual behavior from minors. A federal judge had called Todd Smith's alleged actions "violence of the worst sort" earlier this year after listening to a prose...
-
Appeals court sides with newspaper in labor fight
Headline Legal News 12/20/2012A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with the publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press in a long-running labor dispute between the newspaper and reporters who were fired after they complained about its editorial practices. The U.S. Court of Appe...
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.