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Indiana Supreme Court: ‘Value’ of Work Includes More Than Money Paid

WP Admin | Jan 23rd, 2015

This week, the Indiana Supreme Court was faced with an issue of first impression: whether “value” in the Worker’s Compensation Act meant only the money paid for the work or whether it included other consideration for the work. The ambiguity was found in a portion of the Act affixing secondary liability for persons contracting for work in excess of $1,000 in value. The plaintiff–an employee of a tree removal business–argued that the act applied because the value of the wood that his employer was allowed to keep, coupled with the $600 paid for the removal, exceeded $1,000. The court agreed.

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SCOTUS Resolves Circuit Split on CAFA Amount in Controversy Burden

WP Admin | Dec 19th, 2014

This installment of the Hoosier Litigation Blog looks at the Class Action Fairness Act’s amount in controversy requirement and this week’s Supreme Court decision in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Company, LLC v. Owens in which the Court resolved a circuit split, but not without controversy. In an unfamiliar (5-4) split, Justice Ginsburg authored the majority opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Alito, Sotomayor, and Breyer. The dissent, authored by Justice Scalia and joined by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Kagan sought to undue the mistakes of the past in Standard Fire Insurance Company v. Knowles.

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