Council’s transfer of funds upsets officials
- The West Haven City Council in Connecticut voted to transfer $4 million to apply toward a $7.24 million accrual of workers’ compensation expenses identified in an independent audit of fiscal year 2021.
- An additional $158,000 was transferred from the 2023 surplus to the city’s general liability fund as part of that transfer.
- About $2 million will be taken from the city’s $29 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds and $2 million from two line items with a surplus in the fiscal year 2023 budget.
- The invocation of a seven-figure unfunded liability has unsettled some members of the council, who have witnessed multiple revelations of the mismanagement and misappropriation of city finances since 2021.
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Pennsylvania addresses burden of proof
- The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court addressed how a claimant can meet the burden of proof under the Workers’ Compensation Act.
- Woodhouse deals with what is termed “constructive notice,” or notice that is not specific but should have been inferred by the employer given a “series of communications” between the employer and employee.
- The court ultimately concluded that the communications in question as revealed in the record were not sufficient to satisfy the notice requirements of the act, thereby reversing the underlying decisions of both the workers’ compensation judge (WCJ) and the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (board).
- Similar scenarios are rather common, especially with latent injuries that are not immediately obvious or clearly related to the injured worker’s employment.
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Delaware limits recovery for injured workers
- The Delaware Supreme Court recently reinterpreted a section of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act to allow employers and insurance providers to pursue liens on certain excess benefits recovered by injured employees.
- This rare reversal of precedent will effectively end a legal regime, which permitted some employees to enjoy “double recovery” following a workplace injury.
- Instead of workers obtaining claim benefits under multiple insurance policies paid for by their employers with no recourse for the employer, employers and their insurance providers may file subrogation liens to limit the recovery.
- The employee then sued to recover even more benefits under the uninsured motorist (UIM) policies of his employer’s car insurance and his own personal car insurance.
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Nurse imposter charged with fraud
- A federal grand jury in Michigan returned an indictment charging Leticia Gallarzo of Allegan County, with wire fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, two counts of making false statements in medical records affecting health care benefit programs, relating to her scheme to defraud employers by posing as a registered nurse.
- If convicted, Gallarzo faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and two years mandatory imprisonment for aggravated identity theft, to be served consecutively to the underlying sentence.
- Gallarzo used the Michigan licensing number and the name of a person licensed as a nurse to obtain employment as a registered nurse at two different locations: an area nursing home and a hospice facility.
- Gallarzo did not possess a valid nursing license and represented that she earned a master’s degree in nursing.
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