After paying $128,897 in workers’ compensation benefits to Gregory Burdess for an on-the-job injury — he fell from the upper deck of a two-level car hauler manufactured by Cottrell Inc. while working for Jack Cooper Transport Co. — Cooper’s insurer, Continental Indemnity Co., used Section 5(b) of the Workers’ Compensation Act to protect its lien by intervening in the tort case Burdess and his wife pursued against Cottrell, General Motors and Auto Handling Corp. (a Jack Cooper subsidiary). And the plaintiffs — reasoning …