COLUMBUS - The state is fighting lawsuits that could cost Ohio $50 million in insurance payments it demanded back from injured workers. The Bureau of Workers' Compensation said they had been paid twice for the same injury: once by the state, once by insurance firms.

        Citing the double payment, the bureau demanded compensation from more than 7,500 workers from 1993 to 2001.

        The Ohio Supreme Court declared a portion of the law allowing the practice unconstitutional last year. The bureau stopped taking the money and began pushing a new version of the law.

        Now those workers are suing the state for the lost money. In most cases, they had received workers' compensation for medical bills and lost wages, plus payments from private insurance companies.

        In 1999, for example, Jeffrey Gabbard of Camden suffered a broken elbow and hip at work. After Mr. Gabbard settled with the operator of a fork lift involved in the accident, he was forced to pay $110,000 to the bureau to compensate it for the state's coverage of his medical bills and lost wages.

        Part of that $110,000 included money the state believed it would be entitled to for future expenses it would owe Mr. Gabbard. The court struck down the ability of the state to make such future claims.

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