Supreme Court to hear Arizona immigration law challenge
National News
The nation's highest court agreed to decide whether the 2007 state law infringed on federal immigration powers and should be struck down.
The law at issue in the case is different from the strict new Arizona immigration law passed earlier this year and criticized by President Barack Obama that requires the police to determine the immigration status of any person suspected of being in the country illegally.
But the Supreme Court's eventual decision in the case, depending on how the justices rule, could end up affecting the pending legal challenges to the new law as well.
The Obama administration last month urged the Supreme Court to rule that the 2007 law was preempted by federal immigration rules and would disrupt the careful legal balance that the U.S. Congress struck nearly 25 years ago.
The Arizona law suspends or revokes licenses to do business in the state in order to penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. It also requires employers to use an electronic verification system to check the work-authorization status of employees through federal records.
The Legal Arizona Workers Act was adopted after a federal immigration overhaul law died in Congress in 2007.
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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.