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New York Senate Bill 4576

The New York anti-subrogation law is back!  The latest bill seeks to clarify and expand limits on subrogation.  As you may remember, in 2009 the State of New York passed a law that eliminated subrogation and reimbursements rights for health and disability plans in personal injury and wrongful death actions based upon settlement of a claim.  Now, the Chief Administrative Judge has requested clarification stating that General Obligation Law 5-335 addresses only those instances where a settlement has been reached. The bill does not address situations where litigation has been commenced and proceeded to judgment.  New York Senate Bill 4576, introduced on April 12th, seeks to close this “judgment” loophole.  The language in the bill explicitly extends the subrogation recovery bar to all cases that result in judgments against a party and not just settlements of personal injury and wrongful death actions.

Additionally, the new bill seeks to further clarify that a subrogated entity no longer has the right to intervene in a pending bodily injury case. This amendment specifically seeks to eliminate the ability of a carrier to seek recovery from a responsible party through intervention.  This new bill takes aim to close any and all avenues for a carrier with a non-statutory right of reimbursement or subrogation to attempt recovery.

As this bill further restricts and hampers the ability of subrogation entities in the state of New York, NASP members must keep educating legislators on the benefits of subrogation rights.   We need to ensure the public understands the good that subrogation recoveries do for all members of New York in keeping insurance affordable and placing the blame for damages on the party who was responsible.   NASP and its members need to work to make sure the value of subrogation is heard by all New York legislators.  
 
Thanks to Dan Coffey with the Law Office of Daniel W. Coffey in Albany, New York for advising the Amicus Committee of this bill.

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This entry was posted by cmonfils on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 1:24 pm and is filed under New York, Subrogation. 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.