General Obligations Law §5-335 prohibits, with only a handful of exceptions, health care plans from asserting claims for reimbursement or subrogation claims against personal injury plaintiffs' recoveries. In enacting the law, the Legislature expected that, in most cases, health plans' claims against plaintiffs' recoveries would simply be extinguished. This result has not come to pass. Health care plans have attempted to carve out a dizzying array of exceptions to the anti-subrogation provision, primarily by relying on various provisions of federal law.1

In this column, we discuss the exception to the General Obligations Law that is most firmly grounded in federal law: the self-funded ERISA plan. We explain why self-funded ERISA plans are not subject to the GOL provision; what rights these plans have; and what personal injury practitioners should be aware of when representing a client covered under such a plan.

ERISA Preemption

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]