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how one state bucked trend of allowing former spouse to access post-divorce workers' comp benefits
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By Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., www.workcompwriter.com
With the divorce rate for U.S. marriages hovering at almost 50 percent, courts and legislatures are called upon to weigh two conflicting rules related to workers' compensation benefits when it comes to the appropriate division of marital property. One the one hand, the personal nature of the benefits generally results in their being nonassignable under the typical act and generally beyond the reach of creditors. On the other hand, an important rationale for the workers' compensation bargain in the first place was the protection of some modest level of income flow for those dependent upon the employee for their health, education and welfare. Why should the divorcing employee be freed from that obligation? As discussed in the state survey chart below, the strong recent trend among jurisdictions is to characterize the spouse and dependent children as something other than mere "creditors" and, therefore, to allow workers' compensation benefits to be reached, at least in some instances, for the benefit of persons, such as spouses, children, or even former spouses, to whom the injured employee has an obligation to support. A recent Washington case, bucks the trend, however...read more.
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Allowing Former Spouse to Access Post-Divorce Workers' Comp Benefits 
