You Can’t Have it Both Ways: By Waiving Your Comp Lien, You may be Shortchanging Your Third Party Auto Claim

The Pennsylvania Superior Court held on the last day of December, 2007 that workers who are injured in a work related automobile accident who sue the responsible driver cannot seek to recover wage loss and medical expenses when they have waived the right to those benefits in a prior settlement of the worker’s compensation case. In 2002 the worker sustained serious injuries in a work-related motor vehicle accident and incurred wage loss and medical expenses paid by the workers’ compensation carrier in the amount of $237,000. He later settled his workers’ compensation case for an additional $95,000 in exchange for the insurance carrier’s waiver of its right to collect its payments from any future recovery from a responsible third party. Claimant then pursued an underinsured motorist claim against his employer’s fleet insurance carrier seeking to submit his lost wages and medical expenses as an element of damages. The Superior Court denied that right.