Mississippi: Death Benefits May Be Subjected to Lien for Unpaid Child Support

In a deeply divided (5-4) decision, a Mississippi appellate court held that a deceased employee’s workers’ compensation death benefits could be subject to a lien for unpaid child support in spite of the fact that, prior to the employee’s death, the children had been adopted by their step-father. The court reversed a decision by the state’s Commission that found the “children” were not dependent upon the employee at the time of his death and, therefore, had no special status. The court pointed to the fact that the lien—in the amount of $35,000—had accrued prior to the adoption and, therefore, was unaffected by that adoption.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Young v. Air Masters Mech., 2019 Miss. App. LEXIS 152 (Apr. 16, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 89.08.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see