When negotiations concerning a possible settlement of plaintiff’s subrogation claim failed, Ms. DeBoer demanded her share of the settlement, and the attorney defendants paid over to her the amounts they had recovered, less their counsel fees and expenses. In doing so, they carefully notified Ms. DeBoer of her obligation to repay the plaintiff’s subrogation claim, and obtained from Ms. DeBoer an agreement to indemnify them against any claims which might ensue because they had paid over the proceeds to her. The present lawsuit followed.

UFCW Local 1776 v. Deboer, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73499 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 25, 2008)

The district court dismissed an ERISA plan’s claims against personal injury attorneys who had disbursed settlement funds at the behest of their client.

The district court saw the ERISA case as essentially a dispute between Deboer and the plan.  The court went on to say that the plan’s claims against the defendant attorneys arose under state law.   Applying Pennsylvania law, the court held that the attorneys could not be held liable for interference with Ms. Deboers’ “contract” to repay the plan nor conversion.

This case is easily distinguishable from the case principally relied upon by the plaintiff, Greenwood Mills, Inc. v. Burris, et al., 130 F. Supp. 2d 949 (M.D. Tenn., 2001), where attorneys were held liable for non-recognition of a subrogation claim under Tennessee law.  In that case, the attorneys had caused their client to lie about the third-party recovery, and had misrepresented it to the subrogation claimant. Moreover, the case was decided under Tennessee law, which apparently differs from the law of Pennsylvania.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under 3rd, 6th, Pennsylvania, Provider Reimbursement, Tennessee. 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.