Eliminating a Most Convenient Forum: The Case for Restricting the Extraterritorial Operation of Neb. Rev. Stat. Section 48-115(2)(B)
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Authors
Zink, Robert A.
Zink, Walter E. II
Issue Date
2005
Volume
38
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
INTRODUCTION|Though all states maintain some form of workers' compensation laws that purport to extend subject matter jurisdiction over those occasions where an employee is injured performing services outside the state, no state in the country maintains as broad an extraterritorial provision as does Nebraska's section 48-115(2)(b), which permits Nebraska courts to assert subject matter jurisdiction over all such injuries so long as the employer is "performing work within" the state.|Historically, few claims have been asserted in Nebraska purely on the allowance provided under section 48-115(2)(b). Yet the provision's status as a rarely invoked jurisdictional grant stands to change as the result of the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court's ("NWCC") recent "plain language" application of the provision. The unsettling effect of a plain-language fashioning of section 48-115(2)(b) effectively empowers forum-shopping plaintiffs with a previously unrecognized avenue to file qualifying workers' compensation claims in Nebraska, thereby granting a significantly greater population access to the potentially pro-employee advantages provided in the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Act ("NWCA")...
Description
Citation
38 Creighton L. Rev. 1 (2004-2005)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law