Court to Take Up Voting Rights Suit
Recent Cases
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide a potentially important voting rights case and whether crime lab reports can be used as trial evidence without the testimony of analysts who prepared them.
In a case from North Carolina, the high court agreed to decide whether the federal voting-rights law applied to districts where a racial minority group constituted less than half the population.
The federal voting-rights law, first adopted in 1965 and considered a landmark in civil rights legislation, is designed to protect the rights of minorities.
In the case, the state of North Carolina appealed and said the issue had been left unresolved by the Supreme Court in five previous opinions over a 20-year period through 2006.
Attorneys for the state said the case likely would be the last opportunity for the Supreme Court to decide the issue before the redrawing of legislative boundaries that will occur after the 2010 Census.
The case involved a district for the North Carolina House of Representatives in which black voters make up less than 50 percent of the population but still have been numerous enough to elect a black candidate in the past, with limited support from white voters.
The district was redrawn and reduced the population of blacks over voting age to 39 percent. The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled the voting rights law does not apply to districts where a minority group accounted for less than half the population.
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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.