Opinion ID: 894976
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Carrier's Right to Intervene

Text: The court of appeals was also correct that the trial court erred in striking the carrier's intervention. There is no deadline for intervention in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. [21] Generally one cannot intervene after final judgment. [22] But when a subrogee's interest has been adequately represented and then suddenly abandoned by someone else, it can intervene even after judgment or on appeal so long as there is neither unnecessary delay nor prejudice to the existing parties. [23] Here, the carrier had no reason to intervene earlier, as its claim and the plaintiffs' were identical insofar as recovering from any tortfeasors. The compensation statute explicitly allows attorneys to represent workers and their carriers simultaneously, and to collect fees out of the carriers' subrogation claims. [24] The draft judgment the plaintiffs filed with the trial court included a paragraph granting the carrier subrogation after deducting one-third as an attorney's fee. Not until the plaintiffs nonsuited and asked the trial court to award the carrier nothing did it have any reason to intervene to protect its claim. Nor did the carrier's intervention cause any delay or prejudice, as the underlying case had already settled. The intervention would not have delayed the settlement a moment had the plaintiffs honestly admitted the benefits they got and agreed to the carrier's right to first money as Texas law requires. In their response and cross-petition, the plaintiffs have dropped their claim that the carrier's intervention was filed too late, now conceding it had no legal duty to intervene any earlier. Instead, they argue subrogation should be denied because the carrier neither pleaded nor proved the exact amount of benefits it paid. There is no requirement that a carrier plead the precise amount of reimbursement it seeks. Such a requirement would often be impractical, requiring an amended petition every week as more benefits are paid. Oddly, the plaintiffs claim Rule 95 imposes such a requirement, but that rule governs payment as an affirmative defense, not payment as an affirmative claim. [25] Nor was the carrier's petition governed by the special requirements for sworn accounts, [26] as the carrier had no account with the tortfeasors. All the carrier's petition had to do was give fair notice of that claim, [27] not the specific dollar amount sought. Nor was the carrier required to prove up its whole case the day it intervened. The intervention here was timely (as noted above), and litigants cannot be put to trial summarily. [28] The plaintiffs point out correctly that a carrier must prove its case at trial, [29] but this case was called for a settlement hearing, not trial. Although the trial court's findings of fact state that the parties waived a jury and elected to proceed with trial, the judgment itself and the transcript of the hearing (entitled Settlement Hearing) show that is simply not the case. Moreover, at the hearing Ledbetter's widow admitted receiving $1,258 a month in benefits since her husband's death, so the trial court had no basis whatsoever for denying subrogation completely. A carrier's subrogation claim should hardly ever be contested; claimants should already know how much they have received in benefits, and a carrier is entitled to reimbursement for medical payments without proof that they were reasonable and necessary. [30] But assuming the Ledbetters wanted to contest those amounts, they could not insist on a summary trial or on being dismissed at the same time, a matter to which we now turn.