Fla. homeowners lose beach dispute at high court
National News
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Florida can undertake beach-widening projects without paying beachfront property owners who lose exclusive access to the water.
The court, by an 8-0 vote, rejected a challenge by six homeowners in Florida's Panhandle who argued that a beach-widening project changed their oceanfront property into oceanview. Justice John Paul Stevens took no part in the case in which the court affirmed an earlier ruling.
Private property advocates had hoped the court would rule for the first time that a court decision can amount to a taking of property.
The court's four conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — were prepared to rule that way, even though the homeowners still would have lost in this case, Scalia said in his opinion for the court. But they lacked a fifth vote.
The Constitution requires governments to pay "just compensation" when they take private property for public use.
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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.