Settling Workers’ Compensation Subrogation Claims Independent Of Employees’ Claims

Aggressive subrogation practitioners always look for short cuts. Ours is an industry in which the “bottom line” means the difference between success and failure. If a workers’ compensation subrogation claim can be resolved quickly—even before the employee settles the third-party action filed by him—it improves the cost-effectiveness of the result. In many states, a workers’ compensation carrier can settle directly with a third-party defendant, in some cases assigning its subrogation lien to the defendant, who can then take a credit for the full lien when settling the employee’s personal injury action, despite having reimbursed the carrier something less than the full lien.