Massachusetts: Insurer’s Lien Does Not Reach Injured Worker’s Damages for Pain and Suffering in Third-Party Action

Relying upon an earlier decision [(Curry v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 80 Mass. App. Ct. 592 (2011)], a Massachusetts appellate court held that the workers’ compensation insurer’s lien under G. L. c. 152, § 15, does not reach the damages for pain and suffering recovered by the injured worker in a third-party action. The court added that the fact that Curry was a wrongful death action brought by the estate of a deceased worker, and that the instant case was a tort action brought by an injured worker, did not provide a meaningful basis on which to distinguish Curry; a deceased worker’s legal representative “stands in the shoes of the deceased” worker for purposes of § 15.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See DiCarlo v. Suffolk Constr. Co., Inc., 2014 Mass. App. LEXIS 147 (Nov. 6, 2014) [2014 Mass. App. LEXIS 147 (Nov. 6, 2014)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 117.05 [117.05]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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