Court: Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act Structured Payments Cannot be Factored

Insurance partner Sandra Jones authored an article for The Legal Intelligencer that discusses a Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act settlement in Michigan. She highlights that this is the first time the issue has been litigated in a Michigan state court but that courts throughout the United States have juggled and decided the issue previously.

Jones explains that she, along with fellow Faegre Drinker insurance attorney Louise Bonner, represented the owner and issuer of the funding annuity in the settlement. She outlines the client’s argument that most structured settlement protection acts (SSPAs) enacted throughout the U.S. are derived from one of several versions of the same model legislations, and she adds that Michigan’s SSPA excludes transfers of workers’ compensation payment rights such as those at issue in the settlement.

Jones notes that the circuit court judge nearly adopted, verbatim, the owner and issuer’s sound argument and adds that this recent rejection is a significant victory for the structured settlement industry.

The full article is available to The Legal Intelligencer subscribers.