Recently, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico handed down a ruling denying an insurance company’s motion to intervene. The insurance company allegedly had paid the plaintiff workers’ compensation benefits under California law, and asserted that it should be allowed to intervene to assert a subrogation right to recover sums it paid out from any recovery the plaintiff achieved against the trucking company allegedly responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries.
The accident underlying the plaintiff’s personal injury suit occurred on westbound Interstate 40 in McKinley County, New Mexico. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, traffic was backed up at the time of the accident because the road was under construction. The complaint further alleges that a truck driver was driving on cruise control at a speed of 66 miles per hour. As the driver approached a mile marker, he was allegedly looking down. When the truck he was driving was a second away from a pickup truck, the driver of the pickup truck looked up. Tragically, it was too late to stop the collision, which allegedly resulted in a fire and chain reaction of accidents on the interstate.
Among those sustaining serious personal injuries was the plaintiff, who was en route to California at the time, according to the complaint he filed in New Mexico’s 11th Judicial District Court against the truck driver, the trucking company that employed the driver and corporate affiliates of the trucking company. The trucking company removed the complaint from the state court in which it had been filed to federal court.