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Trevino v. HHL Financial Services Inc.9/15/1997
ain and give effect to the intent of the General Assembly in enacting the statute." Denver Area Labor Fed'n, AFL-CIO v. Buckley, 924 P.2d 524, 527 (Colo. 1996). "To determine such intent, courts should first look to the statutory language giving words and phrases their commonly understood meaning." Id.
Section 38-27-101 provides that a hospital that furnishes services to a person injured as the result of a third party's negligent or wrongful acts is entitled to "a lien for all reasonable and necessary charges for hospital care upon the net amount payable to such injured person . . . out of the total amount of any recovery or sum had or collected . . . as damages on account of such injuries." 38-27-101, 16A C.R.S. (1996 Supp.). The statute plainly provides that the lien is in the full amount of the hospital charges. There is not any language in the statute suggesting that the hospital's recovery is limited to the difference between the "reasonable and necessary charges" and the attorney fees incurred in obtaining the damages award. The General Assembly could easily have included such a limitation but did not.
The fact that an attorney's lien is senior to a hospital lien does not suggest that the hospital is required to pay a proportionate share of attorney fees. Giving the attorney's lien priority simply means that it is satisfied first. The hospital lien is then satisfied from the "net amount payable to injured person." 38-27-101, 16A C.R.S. (1996 Supp.). Although the hospital lien cannot be collected until after the attorney's lien has been paid, nothing in the statute indicates that the amount of the hospital lien is reduced by the payment of the attorney's lien. If the injured person's recovery is not sufficient to satisfy both the attorney's lien and the hospital lien, the attorney's lien must be satisfied first. This does not mean, however, that the patient is no longer liable for the full amount of the hospital charges. The hospital would still be entitled to collect any deficiency from other assets.
In this case, Trevino's attorney was entitled to a lien in the amount of one-third of the entire $80,000 settlement award he negotiated with Hartford. The settlement funds were sufficient to satisfy both the attorney fees and the hospital lien. Thus, the defendants were not required to look to other sources for payment of Trevino's medical bills.
We conclude that the court of appeals correctly held that HHL and University Hospital were not liable for a share of the attorney fees incurred in obtaining the settlement. We therefore affirm the court of appeals.
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