Court won't hear appeal from Adelphia founders
Recent Cases
The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a father and son who built Adelphia Communications into a cable television powerhouse and were convicted of fraud after it collapsed into bankruptcy.
The high court refused on Monday to hear an appeal from John and Timothy Rigas.
The Rigases were sent to prison after Adelphia collapsed in 2002. At the time, it was the country's fifth-largest cable TV company.
Prosecutors said John Rigas used it like a personal piggy bank, paying for expenses as small as massages and withdrawing $100,000 from the company whenever he wished.
The Rigases say the government should have turned over to them notes taken during prosecutorial interviews with some witnesses. They also say their prison sentences were too long.
Related listings
-
Court asked to keep stem cell money flowing
Recent Cases 09/09/2010The Obama administration is asking a federal appeals court to lift an order blocking federal funding for some stem cell research, a day after being turned down by the judge who issued the order. The administration told a federal appeals court in Wash...
-
Appeals court OKs warrantless GPS tracking by feds
Recent Cases 08/30/2010The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit earlier this month declined to schedule an en banc hearing, or a hearing before all judges in the ninth circuit, as requested by the defendant in a drug-related case. The defendant was seeking to suppre...
-
Toyota Recalls Corolla Sedans and Matrix Hatchbacks
Recent Cases 08/30/2010The popularity of Toyota took another blow last week as the company announced another in what seems to be a regular series of recalls. Apparently there have been issues with stalling engines in the 2005 through 2008 Matrix Hatchbacks and Corolla Seda...
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.