Washington Court Creates Latent Disease Exception
- Washington State’s Supreme Court in Cockrum v. C.H. Murphy/Clark-Ullman, Inc., revised the standard that applies when employees afflicted by latent diseases seek to hold their employers liable outside of the workers’ compensation system.
- Plaintiff Jeffrey Cockrum developed mesothelioma after decades of working for Alcoa.
- “We conclude that, in latent disease cases, virtual certainty is sufficient to prove the employer’s actual knowledge that injury was certain to occur,” said Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, writing for the majority in the May 29 decision.
- “This does not alter the standard of actual knowledge injury is certain to occur that is generally required to satisfy the deliberate injury exception for immediate and visible types of injuries; this virtual certainty standard is limited only to latent disease cases.”
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CMS Starts Using 2022 CDC Life Table for WCMSAs
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will this week begin using the “Table 1: Life Table for the total population: United States, 2022” to calculate an adjusted life expectancy in Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Asides (WCMSAs).
- The table correlates a person’s age with anticipated life expectancy, so CMS uses it to determine the appropriate length of medical treatment.
- A WCMSA is a financial agreement that allocates a portion of a workers’ compensation settlement to pay for future medical services related to the workers’ compensation injury, illness, or disease.
- These funds must be depleted before Medicare will pay for treatment related to the workers’ compensation injury, illness, or disease.
- As well, effective July 17, 2025, CMS will no longer accept or review WCMSA proposals with a zero-dollar allocation.
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Megamerger Links Brown & Brown With Rival Broker Accession
- Insurance broker Brown & Brown will buy Accession Risk Management in a $9.83 billion cash-and-stock deal.
- Boston-based Accession is the parent of Risk Strategies and insurance wholesaler One80 Intermediaries.
- The deal is expected to boost Brown & Brown’s property and casualty, and employee benefit insurance businesses, as it builds in the middle-market segment.
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