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Welf. & Inst. Code, § 14124.72 · Article 3.5. Third Party Liability

Welf. & Inst. Code, § 14124.72

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) If an action is brought by the director pursuant to Section 14124.71, it shall be commenced within the period prescribed in Section 338 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

(b) The death of the beneficiary does not abate any right of action established by Section 14124.71.

(c) When an action or claim is brought by persons entitled to bring such actions or assert such claims against a third party who may be liable for causing the death of a beneficiary, any settlement, judgment or award obtained is subject to the director’s right to recover from that party the reasonable value of the benefits provided to the beneficiary under the Medi-Cal program, as provided in subdivision (d).

(d) The director’s claim for reimbursement of the benefits provided to the beneficiary shall be limited to the amount of the director’s lien, as defined in subdivision (d) of Section 14124.70. If the action or claim is brought by the beneficiary alone and the beneficiary incurs a personal liability to pay attorney’s fees and costs of litigation, the amount of the director’s lien that is reimbursed shall be reduced by 25 percent, which represents the director’s reasonable share of attorney’s fees paid by the beneficiary, and that portion of the cost of litigation expenses determined by multiplying the actual litigation expenses by the ratio of the amount reimbursed to the director as satisfaction of the director’s lien, prior to deducting reasonable attorney’s fees and litigation expenses, to the full amount of the settlement, judgment, or award.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 52, Sec. 32. (SB 97) Effective July 10, 2017.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WIC&sectionNum=14124.72.
Text hash
sha256 25d3e4bf9810c07a9b5c1c480e240bfe81b7e732221d4651c75f073c9d7d3106
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compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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