NY Court Overturns Assessments on Healthy Self-Insured Trusts

Score one for fairness! A trial court judge in Albany County has ruled that the Workers' Compensation Board cannot assess solvent group self-insured trusts for millions of dollars in liabilities incurred by financially troubled trusts. She upheld the board's right to do so once it has exhausted the resources of the under funded trusts, but said that the board had not yet done so in this case.

This is a good decision for New York employers in general and for the group self-insured trust system in particular. A ruling against the healthy trusts probably would have doomed the entire group trust industry.