Oscar Pistorius case: Court sets November for appeal
Headline Legal News
Oscar Pistorius' case will go in front of South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal in November, the court said Monday, when prosecutors will challenge the decision to acquit him of murder for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius would again face the possibility of a murder conviction and a minimum of 15 years in prison if a panel of judges at the Supreme Court of Appeal overturns the original decision in his murder trial.
The court has not yet set an exact date for the appeal, court registrar Paul Myburgh told The Associated Press, but it will be in November. That will be three months after Pistorius is eligible for release from prison to serve the remainder of his current sentence, for a culpable homicide conviction, under house arrest.
Pistorius was acquitted of murder last year for killing Steenkamp in 2013 by shooting her multiple times through a closed toilet door in his Pretoria home. The runner claimed he mistook Steenkamp for a nighttime intruder.
He was convicted instead of culpable homicide, a charge similar to manslaughter, and sentenced to five years in a jail in the South African capital, Pretoria.
Prosecutors appealed the decision by trial Judge Thokozile Masipa, saying the double-amputee Olympic athlete should have been found guilty of murder. In December, Masipa granted prosecutors permission to appeal her finding at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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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.