As you know, the recent Fortis case in Texas said that if a plan document excludes made whole rule (and presumably, other equitable doctrine such as the common fund doctrine), the contract language trumps the equitable doctrine.

The Texas Supreme Court recently struck another big victory for subrogation in its Health Insurance Risk Pool v. Sigmundik, 2010 WL 2136625 (Tex. 2010), case. In a powerful, pro-subrogation opinion, the Court declared that a trial court abuses its discretion when it invokes the equitable doctrine to circumvent a party’s contractual right to subrogation.

Basically, under Texas State law, if the plan language says made whole doesn’t apply… it doesn’t apply! We also feel strongly that these cases can be used to counter common fund arguments as well.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under Made Whole Rule, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.