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Adcox v. Children's Orthopedic Hospital and Medical Center12/23/1993
in eliminating the collateral source rule has been to prevent overcompensating plaintiffs in light of the resulting costs to society. This goal is met whether the offset called for in RCW 7.70.080 is conducted by the jury or the trial judge. Moreover, in the many states where legislatures have abrogated the collateral source rule in medical malpractice actions, legislatures have been "almost evenly split on whether the court or the jury will hear evidence that the plaintiff received collateral benefits". Comment, 53 J. Air L. & Com. at 820. Accordingly, the purpose of eliminating the collateral source rule is met whether the determination is made by the court or the jury.
We are disinclined to reverse the jury verdict and require another 5-week trial merely because the judge, rather than the jury, took on responsibility for deciding the offset called for in RCW 7.70.080. We hold the error to be harmless. While we do not condone the trial court's failure to follow RCW 7.70.080 in its entirety, and we strongly encourage trial courts to fully follow the statute in the future, we find no reversible error.
We affirm the judgment below.
Disposition
Holding that the hospital failed to preserve for review the issue of allocation of fault; that the hospital's records of its investigation of the infant's treatment were subject to discovery; that the damage award was not excessive; that the mother's action was timely commenced; that certain instructional errors were harmless; and that the determination by the trial court, rather than the jury, of collateral source offsets was harmless; the court affirms the judgment.
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