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Bell Atlantic-Delaware5/17/2005
Submitted: January 19, 2005
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, JACOBS, and RIDGELY, Justices.
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
Bell Atlantic-Delaware Inc., now Verizon-Delaware Inc., appeals a judgment of the Superior Court ordering it to repay an employee, Appellee Domenic A. Saporito, the excess of an amount Saporito paid to satisfy a workers' compensation lien held by the company. Verizon contends that the trial judge undervalued the lien by characterizing certain payments as personal-injury protection (PIP) benefits instead of workers' compensation. In this opinion, we conclude that the subrogation rights of employers and self-insurers under Delaware's no-fault insurance and employment statutes establish a reimbursement policy that covers all payments Verizon made to Saporito, whether characterized as PIP or workers' compensation. We find that the record evidence contradicts the trial judge's conclusion that Verizon's erroneous characterization of some payments made to Saporito resulted in a waiver of Verizon's workers' compensation lien. The evidence instead compels a finding that the payments Verizon made in excess of its PIP coverage limits were in fact payments made as workers' compensation benefits. Accordingly, we reverse.
I.
In 1997, a Lankford-Sysco Food Services Inc. vehicle collided with a workvan operated by Saporito, Verizon's employee. As employer and self-insurer, Verizon paid Saporito a combination of workers' compensation and PIP benefits. Saporito and his wife also filed a claim against Lankford in the Superior Court.
Verizon joined in the lawsuit to protect its compensation lien and filed a separate action against Lankford to protect its PIP subrogation interest.
After Saporito settled his third-party tortfeasor claim against Lankford in 1999, Verizon sought reimbursement of the workers' compensation benefits it paid to Saporito from those settlement funds. Verizon claimed Saporito owed it approximately $150,000. Because Saporito disputed this amount, Verizon sought to reopen the case. The trial judge agreed, ordered discovery, and held an evidentiary hearing to determine the amount Saporito owed Verizon. The trial judge also authorized Saporito to tender, pending final valuation of any lien, an initial payment to Verizon. Shortly thereafter, Saporito sent a check to Verizon for approximately $85,000.
At the hearing, Verizon's payroll-services manager testified that the company considered all payments in excess of its PIP coverage, although variously recorded as PIP and workers' compensation, to be payments made to comply with workers' compensation benefits owed. An assistant manager in risk management testified that Verizon, as a self-insurer, only provides $15,000 in PIP coverage, the statutorily required minimum. The record also reflects that Saporito agreed to pay the full amount of Verizon's compensation lien out of third-party settlement funds.
Following the hearing, the trial judge found that, despite the company's stated policy to provide no more PIP than the minimum $15,000 required by statute, Verizon paid Saporito $74,963.97 in PIP wage benefits, $35,438.45 in PIP medical reimbursements, and $46,299.10 in workers' compensation benefits.
Based on the evidence presented and the testimony presented, the PIP lien was resolved. And at least by December of 1999, given your [Verizon's] letter, it was paid by Lankford-Sysco totaling . . . the $9,548.30 [in National Guard PIP]. And that was settled. It's not an issue based upon your correspondence. It is also clear to me based upon records subsequently produced that the
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