N. Ind. court helps veterans get back on track
Recent Cases
A northern Indiana judge is helping troubled veterans get their lives back in order.
Porter Superior Judge Julia Jent started the Veterans Treatment Court slightly more than two years ago. Case managers, mental health professionals, prosecutors and public defenders work to help veterans who have had a run-in with the law try to solve some of the problems they are facing.
On Friday, six military veterans who graduated from the program. Sixty-three-year-old Paul Hake of Porter says it completely change his life. Hake is a Marine veteran who served in Vietnam. He says he had a problem with alcohol, but now he has his life back.
The class was the third graduating class since the program began.
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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.