Kansas Court Weighs in on the ‘Where’ of Montana Workplace Injury
- The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last week that the state’s workers compensation fund must cover the injuries suffered by a Kansas nurse who was working in Montana on a contract that she signed in her home state of Kansas.
- She was working for a Montana-based company that didn’t carry WC coverage in Kansas.
- The court ruling noted that the “Kansas Workers Compensation Act contains its own choice of law rules, rejecting the doctrine of lex loci delicti—the law of the place of injury.”
- The nurse, while working with Kalispell, Montana-based Healthcenter Northwest LLC, slipped and fell on ice in a parking lot in Montana. She then received WC benefits and medical treatment for her injuries there before returning to Kansas and sought further treatment there.
- The legal question raised is whether the Kansas Workers Compensation Fund is responsible for those continuing treatment expenses.
- The state Workers Compensation Appeals Board ruled the Kansas fund was liable, finding that the nurse’s contract for employment was made in Kansas. The fund appealed, arguing that it should not be liable.
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W.R. Berkley Reports Modest Decline in Q3 WC Net Premiums
- W. R. Berkley (WRB) reported Q3 earnings late Monday of $0.91 per diluted share, up from $0.82 a year earlier.
- Its workers’ compensation line wrote net premiums of $302.18 million in the period, versus $302.70 million a year earlier. Year to date, WC net premiums totalled $939.24 million, versus $937.85 million in the first nine months of 2023.
- The company’s workers’ compensation line accounts for about 10% of the total revenue, according to data compiled by Factset.
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