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Robinson v. Bates4/22/2005
ordering a court to reduce a plaintiff's recovery by any amount received from a collateral source that does not have subrogation rights. A United States District Court applying Montana law acknowledged that even if the jury awarded the full amount of the plaintiff's medical bills, it would have to reduce the award. Consequently, the court held that the plaintiff's recovery was limited to the amount paid by Medicaid. But the court also held that the plaintiff's medical bills were admissible to show the jury the severity and extent of her injuries. It also held that the medical bills were relevant to future medical care and expenses required.
{ } Finally, Alaska also has a state statute that limits a plaintiff's recovery due to collateral sources. While Alaska courts have not yet addressed the issue of whether a write-off would be considered a collateral source, in a dissent from a denial of a petition to review an interlocutory order, one Alaska Supreme Court justice wrote, "There is no reason to distinguish between cases where the provider writes off part of the care's value out of charity, because it has no hope of collecting, and cases where the payment is coming from an insurer -- governmental or private -- with bargaining power. The amount discounted out of a medical bill is part of the value of that collateral benefit and should not accrue to the defendant."
{ } We note that Ohio has no law limiting the collateral-source rule. While courts in Idaho, New York, Florida, and Montana have felt obligated to follow legislative intent to limit the collateral-source rule and a plaintiff's recovery, we are under no such constraint.
{ } But there are two states in which courts have determined, without any state law limiting the collateral-source rule, that the collateral-source rule does not allow plaintiffs to recover the written-off portion of their medical bills.
{ } In Hanif v. Housing Authority of Yolo County, a California appellate court concluded that the "reasonable value" of a plaintiff's damages must be the actual amount paid or the amount for which the plaintiff incurred liability. The court stated, "In tort actions, medical expenses fall generally into the category of economic damages, representing actual pecuniary loss caused by the defendant's wrong. * * * t follows that an award of damages for past medical expenses in excess of what the medical care and services actually cost constitutes overcompensation."
{ } While the court acknowledged that a defendant was liable for the "reasonable value" of the plaintiff's medical care, the court interpreted "reasonable value" to be "a term of limitation, not of aggrandizement." The court concluded, "Thus, when the evidence shows a sum certain to have been paid or incurred for past medical care and services, whether by the plaintiff or by an independent source, that sum certain is the most the plaintiff may recover for that care despite the fact it may have been less than the prevailing market rate."
{ } The Hanif court emphasized that the purpose of tort damages is to compensate the plaintiff for the injury suffered. That is, the purpose is to restore the plaintiff as nearly as possible to his or her former position. The court stressed that a plaintiff in a tort action is not to be placed in a better position than he or she would have been in had the wrong not been done.
{ } In Moorhead v. Crozer, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion. As in Hanif, the Moorhead court focused on the fact that damages are meant to compensate plaintiffs for their medical expenses. For this reason, the expenses must be limited to the costs that were actually incurred. The cour
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