Worker Can Recover Medical Costs Covered by Non-Intervening Health Carrier

The Minnesota Supreme Court held that an injured worker can assert a direct claim for medical expenses paid by her insurer despite the carrier's failure to intervene in the comp case. As it did last year in Johnson v. Concrete Treatments Inc., the high court held that injured workers have a freestanding substantive right to have employers pay for medical treatment of compensable injuries that is not contingent on whether a provider or carrier files a motion to intervene. Though Johnson involved medical bills from a provider who did not file a motion to intervene, the high court said the ...