Who gets paid first, the health care provider or the attorneys? The Illinois Supreme Court has held that the health care providers or professionals come first. Recently, in McVey v. M.L.K. Enterprises, LLC, 2015 IL 118143, 32 N.E.3d 1112 the Illinois Supreme Court considered whether, under section 10 of the Health Care Services Lien Act (770 ILCS 23/10(a)) (“Act”), a lien by a health care professional or provider should be calculated based on a plaintiff’s total recovery or whether attorney fees and costs are deducted from the award prior to calculating the hospital’s lien. Under the Act, a health care provider that renders any services in the treatment, care or maintenance of an injured “shall have a lien upon all claims and causes of action of the injured person for the amount of the health care provider’s reasonable charges up to the date of payment of damages to the injured person.” 770 ILCS 23/10(a). The Court found there is no language in section 10 that would allow the calculation of a health care lien to be based upon the total “verdict, judgment, award, settlement or compromise” less attorney fees and costs. The Court held the statutory language in section 10 of the Act to be unambiguous and did not permit the deduction of attorney fees and costs prior to calculating the amount to be paid to any health care lienholder.
Archives for November 2015
District Court Dismisses Claim for Unauthorized Disclosure of Personal Identifying Information Under Video Privacy Protection Act
The Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) was originally drafted to protect an individual from the release of his personal information by his local video store, but developments in technology have forced courts to apply the VPPA in different scenarios. Recent VPPA decisions have frequently addressed what constitutes “personally identifiable information” (“PII”). In a recent New York case (Robinson v. Disney Online d/b/a Disney Interactive, 14-CV-4146), the court determined that information is PII only if the disclosed information alone can be used to identify a specific individual.
Service Provider Ordered to Disclose Subscriber’s Identity
You may not have the anonymity you think you have on the internet. In Illinois, the Courts are willing to require disclosure of the identity of internet subscribers. Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s judgment that a subscriber’s internet service provider had to disclose the subscriber’s identity in a defamation suit against the subscriber. Hadley v. Doe, 2015 IL 118000, 34 N.E.3d 549
Social Media Sites Do Not Have to Produce Documents During Pretrial Criminal Discovery
What appears to be a victory for protecting social media information from being hauled into court cases from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, is not as broad as it looks. The Courts have held open the possibility of requiring Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to produce social media postings for cross examination at a criminal trial, but have refused to require them to produce the information during the discovery part of the case. It is unlikely, however, that the Court would be more willing to let parties to civil suits have greater access to information than criminal defendants.
Illinois Supreme Court Reverses Folta Decision – Workers’ Compensation Claim is Exclusive Remedy for Employee’s Asbestos Injury
On November 4, 2015, the Illinois Supreme Court filed its opinion in Folta v. Ferro Engineering, 2015 IL 118070. In a 4-2 decision, the Court held that an employee’s common law tort action against his employer is barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act and Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act (“the Act” or “the Acts”) even though no compensation is available under those acts due to statutory time limits on the employer’s liability. This decision represents a major victory for employer defendants in asbestos-related personal injury cases. Previously, there has been a split, specifically between how judges handling asbestos dockets in Cook County and Madison County have ruled on this particular issue. There is now clarity for courts throughout the state of Illinois as to how they should rule when faced with this common factual situation.
In this case, the decedent, James Folta, was an employee of Ferro Engineering from 1966-1970. During that time he was allegedly exposed to asbestos. Mr. Folta was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-related disease, in 2011. At that time, any potential workers’ compensation claim was barred by the Act’s 25-year statute of repose. Unable to pursue a workers’ compensation claim, Folta filed a common law tort claim against Ferro Engineering. Ferro Engineering filed a motion to dismiss that was granted by the circuit court, and subsequently reversed by the appellate court. A full discussion of the appellate court’s decision can be found here.