On December 17, 2012, CCL filed an amicus brief on behalf of the American Association for Justice and North Carolina Advocates for Justice in support of Respondent in the case of Delia v. E.M.A., now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Delia case involves Medicaid liens placed on tort recoveries obtained by Medicaid recipients from liable third parties. Federal law prohibits state Medicaid agencies from placing liens on any portion of a recovery that does not represent compensation for past medical expenses. The issue in Delia is whether a state may evade that requirement by unilaterally deeming a significant portion of any settlement as repayment of medical expenses without any consideration of the facts surrounding a particular settlement. CCL’s amicus brief, authored by CCL Senior Litigation Counsel Louis Bograd, argues that the anti-lien provision of the federal Medicaid act requires that third-party recoveries be fairly and equitably allocated between past medical expenses and other types of damages. The brief describes how numerous states employ evidentiary hearings to allocate Medicaid settlements and notes that North Carolina itself uses such a procedure to allocate damages in workers’ comp cases. The Supreme Court will hear argument in Delia v. E.M.A. on January 8.