Supreme Court halts release of 2 murderers
Headline Legal News
North Carolina's Supreme Court has temporarily halted the release of two convicted murderers under life sentences.
The court granted a request from the state attorney general's office Friday afternoon, shortly before Alford Jones and Faye Brown were set to go free.
The ruling gives state attorneys another chance to make their arguments after two lower courts sided with the inmates. Gov. Beverly Perdue has said that she's disgusted with the state's legal system for saying the inmates should go free.
State courts previously determined that life sentences imposed during a period in the 1970s could be no more than 80 years long. Two dozen inmates could be freed immediately because of sentence-reduction credits applied to their terms.
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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.