Mississippi: Employer and Carrier Estopped From Utilizing Statute of Limitations Defense

In a divided decision, the Court of Appeals of Mississippi reversed a decision of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission and found that the employer and its carrier were estopped from arguing the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense where the uncontroverted testimony indicated that on several occasions the injured employee was assured by the carrier’s adjuster that the carrier would “take care of everything.” The employee also testified, again without contradiction, that she inquired as to whether she needed an attorney and the adjuster told her that she did not, that the carrier would, as earlier indicated, “handle everything” for her. The majority also stressed that not only had the adjuster assigned a case manager to the injured employee, that case manager made, and attended, all the employee’s medical appointments. Moreover, three days after the expiration of the two-year statutory period for filing a petition to controvert, the carrier paid for medical expenses incurred by the injured employee. Under these circumstances, the majority said the employer could not claim the matter was time-barred.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Dietz v. South Miss. Reg’l Ctr., 2017 Miss. App. LEXIS 204 (Apr. 11, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 126.09.

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