Work Comp Issues in Texas

On a brisk day in mid-February, state fraud enforcement attorney Cathy Lockhart got a terse memo from the human resources department at the Texas Department of Insurance and an escort out the door. She had been put on "emergency leave." A few weeks later, the department officially terminated her, citing “secret and clandestine” activity — namely, that she researched how much money had been spent on medical fraud investigations that her supervisor had abruptly spiked.

Click here to read the full article.

Texas Mutual workers compensation group usually do very well and receive nice dividends. Time Insurance Agency can write your workers' compensation in this group is you qualify. Call and find out..

http://www.workerscompensation.com/compnewsnetwork/news/manufacturing_group_874_dividend.html

The following article is by Laura Grabouski. This is an important case.


Texas Court Reverses Bad Faith Verdict Based on Employment Agreement
Contributor: Laura Grabouski Van Osselaer Buchanan LLP


SUMMARY: The Eighth Court of Appeals for Texas reversed and rendered judgment in favor of a self-insured employer in a suit by a former employee for fraud, bad faith, and wrongful termination stemming from an allegedly wrongful termination of workers' compensation benefits. The court found a lack of subject matter jurisdiction because Indiana law, to which the parties had agreed, vested exclusive jurisdiction over the claims to that state's Workers' Compensation Board.
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=f378500a-5673-4e3c-98f2-49138e040914

The following article in the April 3, 2010 issue of The Southeast Texas record.
The Ninth Court of Appeals of Texas has affirmed a lower court ruling that a workers' compensation claim bars a person from filing a civil claim.
They affirmed the matter of law that the exclusive remedy provisions of the Texas Workers Compensation Act bars further civil claims..

Read the entire article here..


http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/225672-workers-comp-claim-bars-civil-suit-justices-affirm

Texas Mutual is tough on fraud. This time they got a claimant. It is a little known fact that Texas Mutual pays for two assistant district attorneys in Travis County to help them file against fraud cases..

Claimant Fined, Ordered To Pay Restitution To Texas Mutual.

Check it out..

This is a study by NCCI. Let me point out that Texas is not a NCCI state, but I think the article is relevant to Texas. We have put cost containment procedures in place with our networks. It will be interesting to see if the methods described in the article will come to Texas...

http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20100120/NEWS/100129992

Whew, but I think we will here more about this in the future. It's just a matter of time until some lawyer figures out the correct route to this type of lawsuit. If you read a previous post here, I think that employers could find a way to file this same type of lawsuit against doctors that over use the Work Comp System. Click on the links below to read the two articles.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2009/12/10/105876.htm

http://news.lawreader.com/?p=2927