Workers Compensation—The SCOTX Report

23-0167·Petition For Review

The Division of Workers' Compensation does not have exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether an injury was work-related when the employer raises the issue only as an exclusive-remedy defense to an employee's negligence suit and the employee's requested relief does not depend on entitlement to benefits, so the district court may decide it and the employee need not first exhaust administrative remedies.
The Court disapproved contrary court of appeals decisions, noting that prudential abatement may be warranted if parallel proceedings are pending before the Division and that employees should still file timely compensation claims to protect their rights.

23-0950·Petition For Review

Justice Young, joined by Justice Sullivan, concurred in the denial of a petition challenging an award of lifetime income benefits, writing that the case is not a good vehicle to decide whether courts must keep applying Travelers Insurance v. Seabolt's 1962 "total loss of use" test or the plain text of Labor Code section 408.161.
He noted that a newer statute supersedes case law construing an older one, so a future case in which the choice between Seabolt and the current statute decides the outcome could warrant review.

23-1039·Mandamus

The proportionate-responsibility statute applies to an employee's negligence suit against an employer that does not subscribe to workers' compensation, because that suit seeks damages, not "an action to collect workers' compensation benefits," and the Workers' Compensation Act does not bar a nonsubscriber from designating responsible third parties.
A trial court abuses its discretion by striking a nonsubscribing employer's responsible-third-party designation where the record raises a fact issue on the third parties' responsibility, and the employer has no adequate appellate remedy.

24-1034·Petition For Review

Did the court of appeals err by deciding the case on a settlement-credit argument Old Republic never presented to the trial court and first raised in its reply brief, and by reading a "settlement credit limitation" from Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.012(b) into the employer liability offset in Labor Code § 417.001(b)?
Even if preserved, is Old Republic estopped or contractually barred from claiming a credit on the Georgia-Pacific settlement funds, and how should the carrier's subrogation lien be calculated when workers settled before a partial-responsibility verdict?

25-0410·Petition For Review

Does an umbrella policy's employer's-liability exclusion for bodily injury to an insured's employee bar coverage for a refinery owner sued by a contractor's injured workers because the owner was a statutory employer under the Labor Code?
Do the workers' compensation and employee-injury exclusions both apply on these facts?