Check Out Our Podcast: The Verdict
What happens if you’re hurt at work and someone outside your employer is responsible? In this episode of The Verdict, lead workers’ comp attorney Brian Groesser joins Clarke to explain how workers’ comp and third-party negligence claims overlap, and why that makes your case more complex.
Brian walks through real-world scenarios, like delivery drivers injured in car accidents, where employees can have both a workers’ comp claim and a lawsuit against the at-fault party. They discuss how these two tracks play out, what a workers’ comp lien is, and why the law doesn’t allow you to be paid twice for the same injury. Most importantly, they explain how skilled attorneys can negotiate liens down—or even wipe them out entirely—so more money ends up in your pocket.
If you’ve ever wondered how multiple claims interact after a workplace injury, we’ll take you through one of the trickiest parts of North Carolina workers’ comp law.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
📑 Workers’ comp lien – Comp carriers can demand repayment from your third-party settlement.
⚖️ Double recovery not allowed – The law aims to make you whole, not pay twice for the same injury.
✍️ Negotiation power – Judges can reduce or even eliminate liens if argued well.
💼 Right legal team – Attorneys who handle both comp and negligence cases give you the best advantage.
Workers comp, third party negligence, recovery, insurance, negotiation, legal team, settlements
Learn more about how Speaks Law Firm can help you: https://www.speakslaw.com/
Schedule your FREE case review: https://www.speakslaw.com/our-team/r-clarke-speaks/#contactFormTarget
Find us on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3R40YMP
Clark: I'm Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict. Welcome to the verdict. I'm Clark Speaks. I'm continuing my conversation with Brian Grosser. Brian, now I want to talk to you about. We've talked a little bit about these work injuries. And if you're hurt at work, then, uh, there's the exclusive workers compensation remedy, meaning, you know, you can't sue your, uh, employer in negligence. And in state court, it all is confined to the workers compensation space. Now that doesn't mean you can't sue somebody else if somebody other than your employer was responsible or was negligent in some way and caused you an accident, caused you an injury. So can you talk to me about that, how that comes up and what are some of the issues that are involved in that process?
Brian Grosser: I use the most common example that we have in workers comp. And it's typically involving a motor vehicle, right? Like you were an employee, you're on the job, and you get into a car accident, the person that hit you wasn't the employer, right? So you are suing the employer under workers comp. Because you were injured under the, uh, on the job. But you also have a cause of action, which we refer to as a third party action against the driver of the vehicle that hit you. And that driver has some sort of coverage, hopefully, right? They've got some sort of insurance coverage for their car when they hit you. So in that situation, you could have two different claims going at the same time. You can have your workers comp claim, which, as you stated, is an exclusive remedy against your employer. So you are in the comp system against your employer, but you're also suing the insurance carriers of the driver that hit you in superior court under a third party claim. So you've got two different cases going at the same time. And typically that's how they proceed under, you know, two different avenues, they're heading in directions. But eventually you get to a point where you're going to settle those cases. And that's something that you need to be cognizant of. Because if the workers comp carriers accepted your case and they've been paying out benefits and they ultimately settle your case, they're going to have something that's known as a lien, a workers compensation lien. It's an automatic right that they have under statute against third party tort fees is a fancy word that you and I are familiar with, but it's the people that caused your accident. And so in that separate claim, let's say you've got a settlement that's about to happen in the third party claim against the insurance carrier that has the car. Well, the workers comp carrier wants some of their money back. Right? And that might not mean you might not care that what insurance carrier gets paid where you want your money, but at the end of the day that's something that has to be dealt with in terms of negotiating that lien, in terms of how much, if any of it is going to be applied to, to your third party settlement. Because it's there, it's sitting there. It's something the workers comp carrier is entitled to. How much are they are entitled to really depends on the work that your attorney does for you. And this is where you're having a good attorney and having a situation like here at Speaks where you have folks that do worker's comp and they do negligence and they do property liability and those types of things where you're talking about somebody that, you know, we can handle a third party case and handle a workers comp case at the same time. Right?
Clark: And it's two different tracks, two different groups, right? Two different, you and your group, your team is working on one piece of it and then the other side is. So let's, let's, let's back up and uh, let's slow down and let's look at this thing in a specific example. So let's say that John is driving for a pizza delivery company and he is hurt and he's, and he's taken his pizza from, from the store to a person's house. Now when he is crossing uh, an intersection, a uh, a delivery uh, driver for a furniture manufacturer hits him. They run a red light. It's their fault, they hit him and cause him injury. So what you're saying is now John, the, the uh, the pizza delivery driver has two claims. One, a workers compensation claim with his employer and two, a negligence claim against the uh, delivery, the furniture delivery driver that hit him and ran the red light and caused him damage. So you're saying there's two different tracks. Track one, workers compensation and that'll proceed just like all the rest of the cases you, you've been talking about. Then the other one would have a completely different track through the state tort, state negligence, uh, uh, pathway. But now what you're talking about is at the end, at the end each party is ready to settle, resolve this claim. Right. And so the idea I think is that uh, the law doesn't want you to recover twice for the same thing. So workers Comp will have, uh, you know, agreed to a
00:05:00
Clark: particular settlement amount and then maybe the furniture company will agree to maybe a settlement amount for your other, uh, for your negligence claim. But now we're talking about how this money is then distributed back to you under these circumstances. Is that right?
Brian Grosser: Yeah.
Clark: Okay. And so the idea is the law doesn't want you to recover twice for the same max for the same injury. Right. That wouldn't be fair. Right.
Brian Grosser: Well, the law, I think, uh, in general wants you to be whole and to make sure that you're whole. And if they don't feel, if the judge doesn't feel on the third party side that you are going to be whole, if the lien from your comp side gets applied to your third party settlement, it's possible that the judge would agree to reducing that lien. In fact, the mechanisms exist within our statute that allow a superior court judge to completely eliminate your workers compensation lien. And there really isn't a, uh, spelled out basis for that.
Clark: So just so we're clear, you're saying that just because this lien exists doesn't necessarily mean it has to be fully satisfied. This is a job for your lawyers then to come in and negotiate and to reduce this lien so they can put as much money in your pocket as possible under these circumstances.
Brian Grosser: That's exactly right. In fact, I can speak to a case that I had when I did defense work and they had a substantial recovery. It was a six figure recovery in workers comp. And they had spent a lot of money on this case in. And it was a situation where a truck had hit this individual in the parking lot semi, uh, truck had hit this individual as he was walking out of the building in the parking lot. And the third party case was probably worth over a million dollars. There's a lot of money involved. And the superior court judge in that particular case heard arguments from the plaintiff's attorney that represented that worker in the third party claim and agreed that, that the lien should be completely wiped out. The lien was $250,000 right around there and it got completely wiped out. So the workers comp carrier didn't get any of their money back. That money went into the employee's pocket. So yes, the lien existed, but the attorney did a great job of arguing that the worker was not whole if that lien actually got applied to the third party settlement. So the worker ended up recouping $250,000 more than they otherwise would have if they didn't have a good attorney. On their side.
Clark: That's great information. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate you talking to us. Join us next time when we'll continue our conversation about workers compensation in North Carolina. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time.
00:07:41
Clark: I'm Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict. Welcome to the verdict. I'm Clark Speaks. I'm continuing my conversation with Brian Grosser. Brian, now I want to talk to you about. We've talked a little bit about these work injuries. And if you're hurt at work, then, uh, there's the exclusive workers compensation remedy, meaning, you know, you can't sue your, uh, employer in negligence. And in state court, it all is confined to the workers compensation space. Now that doesn't mean you can't sue somebody else if somebody other than your employer was responsible or was negligent in some way and caused you an accident, caused you an injury. So can you talk to me about that, how that comes up and what are some of the issues that are involved in that process?
Brian Grosser: I use the most common example that we have in workers comp. And it's typically involving a motor vehicle, right? Like you were an employee, you're on the job, and you get into a car accident, the person that hit you wasn't the employer, right? So you are suing the employer under workers comp. Because you were injured under the, uh, on the job. But you also have a cause of action, which we refer to as a third party action against the driver of the vehicle that hit you. And that driver has some sort of coverage, hopefully, right? They've got some sort of insurance coverage for their car when they hit you. So in that situation, you could have two different claims going at the same time. You can have your workers comp claim, which, as you stated, is an exclusive remedy against your employer. So you are in the comp system against your employer, but you're also suing the insurance carriers of the driver that hit you in superior court under a third party claim. So you've got two different cases going at the same time. And typically that's how they proceed under, you know, two different avenues, they're heading in directions. But eventually you get to a point where you're going to settle those cases. And that's something that you need to be cognizant of. Because if the workers comp carriers accepted your case and they've been paying out benefits and they ultimately settle your case, they're going to have something that's known as a lien, a workers compensation lien. It's an automatic right that they have under statute against third party tort fees is a fancy word that you and I are familiar with, but it's the people that caused your accident. And so in that separate claim, let's say you've got a settlement that's about to happen in the third party claim against the insurance carrier that has the car. Well, the workers comp carrier wants some of their money back. Right? And that might not mean you might not care that what insurance carrier gets paid where you want your money, but at the end of the day that's something that has to be dealt with in terms of negotiating that lien, in terms of how much, if any of it is going to be applied to, to your third party settlement. Because it's there, it's sitting there. It's something the workers comp carrier is entitled to. How much are they are entitled to really depends on the work that your attorney does for you. And this is where you're having a good attorney and having a situation like here at Speaks where you have folks that do worker's comp and they do negligence and they do property liability and those types of things where you're talking about somebody that, you know, we can handle a third party case and handle a workers comp case at the same time. Right?
Clark: And it's two different tracks, two different groups, right? Two different, you and your group, your team is working on one piece of it and then the other side is. So let's, let's, let's back up and uh, let's slow down and let's look at this thing in a specific example. So let's say that John is driving for a pizza delivery company and he is hurt and he's, and he's taken his pizza from, from the store to a person's house. Now when he is crossing uh, an intersection, a uh, a delivery uh, driver for a furniture manufacturer hits him. They run a red light. It's their fault, they hit him and cause him injury. So what you're saying is now John, the, the uh, the pizza delivery driver has two claims. One, a workers compensation claim with his employer and two, a negligence claim against the uh, delivery, the furniture delivery driver that hit him and ran the red light and caused him damage. So you're saying there's two different tracks. Track one, workers compensation and that'll proceed just like all the rest of the cases you, you've been talking about. Then the other one would have a completely different track through the state tort, state negligence, uh, uh, pathway. But now what you're talking about is at the end, at the end each party is ready to settle, resolve this claim. Right. And so the idea I think is that uh, the law doesn't want you to recover twice for the same thing. So workers Comp will have, uh, you know, agreed to a
00:05:00
Clark: particular settlement amount and then maybe the furniture company will agree to maybe a settlement amount for your other, uh, for your negligence claim. But now we're talking about how this money is then distributed back to you under these circumstances. Is that right?
Brian Grosser: Yeah.
Clark: Okay. And so the idea is the law doesn't want you to recover twice for the same max for the same injury. Right. That wouldn't be fair. Right.
Brian Grosser: Well, the law, I think, uh, in general wants you to be whole and to make sure that you're whole. And if they don't feel, if the judge doesn't feel on the third party side that you are going to be whole, if the lien from your comp side gets applied to your third party settlement, it's possible that the judge would agree to reducing that lien. In fact, the mechanisms exist within our statute that allow a superior court judge to completely eliminate your workers compensation lien. And there really isn't a, uh, spelled out basis for that.
Clark: So just so we're clear, you're saying that just because this lien exists doesn't necessarily mean it has to be fully satisfied. This is a job for your lawyers then to come in and negotiate and to reduce this lien so they can put as much money in your pocket as possible under these circumstances.
Brian Grosser: That's exactly right. In fact, I can speak to a case that I had when I did defense work and they had a substantial recovery. It was a six figure recovery in workers comp. And they had spent a lot of money on this case in. And it was a situation where a truck had hit this individual in the parking lot semi, uh, truck had hit this individual as he was walking out of the building in the parking lot. And the third party case was probably worth over a million dollars. There's a lot of money involved. And the superior court judge in that particular case heard arguments from the plaintiff's attorney that represented that worker in the third party claim and agreed that, that the lien should be completely wiped out. The lien was $250,000 right around there and it got completely wiped out. So the workers comp carrier didn't get any of their money back. That money went into the employee's pocket. So yes, the lien existed, but the attorney did a great job of arguing that the worker was not whole if that lien actually got applied to the third party settlement. So the worker ended up recouping $250,000 more than they otherwise would have if they didn't have a good attorney. On their side.
Clark: That's great information. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate you talking to us. Join us next time when we'll continue our conversation about workers compensation in North Carolina. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time.
00:07:41
