Workers comp carrier, Employer may sue for certain death benefits
In McBride v. NES Rentals, an employee was killed on the job in a multi vehicle accident. The employee's family received workers comp death benefits, then sued the various tortfeasors. The employer and the workers comp carrier sought to intervene. The trial court denied the intervention, but the COCA (Court of Civil Appeals) found that the employer should have been allowed to intervene and press its claim regarding death benefits and both the employer and the carrier should have been allowed to intervene and recoup expenses of the last illness and the funeral.
The case is rather difficult because of recent changes in the workers comp laws in Oklahoma. It used to be that an employer had no right to subrogate against comp death benefits. But the statute was changed, and allowed the employer to recover from a third party the amount of death benefit payments made to a claimant's survivors under the Workers Comp Act.
The court states:
Because §44(d) grants employer the right to recover from the third party causing the death ofits employee, but specifically independent of the death benefits paid to claimant's survivors under the Workers' Compensation Act, the claimant's survivors suffer no unconstitutional reduction or limitation of their recovery against the third-party tortfeasor.
Thus the employer has the right to intervene for death benefits paid by the carrier, and both the carrier and the employer have the right to intervene for last illness and funeral expenses.
This case has not yet been released for publication, and is subject to change.
