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Gutierrez v. City of Albuquerque8/25/1998
eceive a 'double recovery' hat is, double compensation for the same injury." (emphasis added). "It is recognized that a work 's compensation award is not comparable to the normal tort recovery," id., and it follows that it is not necessarily a windfall when a worker receives both a tort recovery and compensation benefits. In order to determine whether and to what extent a windfall exists, a court must analyze the elements of each recovery.
{11} A tort recovery is the product of a system designed to make parties at fault pay for the injuries they cause. Justice Ransom described the public policies behind tort recovery in Trujillo:
"Our fault system of recovery . . . today serves the important social functions of redistributing the economic burden of loss from the injured individuals on whom it originally fell, deterring conduct that society regards as unreasonable or immoral, and providing a vehicle by which injured victims may obtain some degree of compensation and satisfaction for wrongs committed against them and by which society may give voice and form to its condemnation of the wrongdoer." (footnote omitted).
The benchmark for a tort recovery is to put the victim in the position he or she would have occupied but for the tortfeasor's negligent conduct. Under our comparative negligence system, each negligent party is charged an amount representing its percentage of fault. See NMSA 1978 § 41-3A-1(B) (1987). An injured worker's tort remedy is theoretically designed to compensate for lost wages, lost earning capacity, medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and other expenses or losses proximately caused by the wrongdoer. See UJI 13-1802 to 13-1810A NMRA 1998 (jury instructions with section entitled "PERSONAL INJURY DAMAGES; ELEMENTS").
{12} Workers' compensation benefits have vastly different objectives: they are not given to make the worker whole. The theory is that industry should bear the burden of injuries sustained by its workers. See Prosser § 80, at 573 ("The theory underlying the workers compensation acts never has been stated better than in the old campaign slogan, 'the cost of the product should bear the blood of the workman'." (footnote omitted)). Workers are to receive benefits expediently and without regard to fault, but in return the benefits provide only certain medical expenses and periodic subsistence payments, representing some portion of worker's former wages, for a prescribed period of time. See
{13} The remedies provided to an injured worker by each system are certainly not interchangeable, and at best overlap only to some extent. When a worker receives a fair but partial tort recovery, it is quite possible that the worker's tort recovery will not duplicate the extent of compensation benefits paid by the employer. For example, that part of a tort recovery calculated to cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, or loss of earning capacity would not overlap or duplicate any workers' compensation benefits. That part of a tort recovery calculated to cover a worker's necessary medical expenses, however, most likely would duplicate compensation benefits paid on worker's behalf. The Judge must therefore analyze and compare the worker's two recoveries in order to determine the extent of duplication, and thus determine the extent of the employer's reimbursement. This assessment must be made after the Judge determines the actual amount of tort damages suffered, the elements of damage (including the amounts thereof), the degree of the tortfeasor's fault, and the amount of the tort award or good faith settlement.
C. Calculating Employer's Interest
{14} The employer is enti
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