Judge clears 'Housewives' firing lawsuit for trial
Headline Legal News
A jury should decide whether Nicollette Sheridan's character was unfairly written out of the hit show "Desperate Housewives," a judge ruled Tuesday.
With the actress looking on, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White tossed a couple of Sheridan's claims but said there was enough of a dispute about what led to her ouster for the case to go to trial next month.
Sheridan sued ABC and "Housewives" creator and executive producer Marc Cherry in April 2010, claiming he struck her during a fight in September 2008 and subjected her to sexual and other harassment.
Adam Levin, an attorney for the network and Cherry, argued Tuesday that the decision to kill off Sheridan's character, Edie Britt, was made months before her argument with the show executive. He said the decision was made by Cherry and a small group in May 2008 and kept from others on the show to avoid ruining the surprise.
Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, disagreed and said the network's justification that it was a cost-cutting move didn't make sense since Sheridan's character was killed off in a car accident in the middle of the season and she was still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on her contract.
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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.