2023 Montana Code Annotated › Title 27. Civil Liability, Remedies, and Limitations › Chapter 1. Availability of Remedies -- Liability › Part 3. Measure of Damages › 27-1-307. Definitions

27-1-307. Definitions.
As used in 27-1-308 and this section:
(1) "Collateral source" means a payment for something that is later included in a tort award and that is made to or for the benefit of a plaintiff or is otherwise available to the plaintiff:
(a) for medical expenses and disability payments under the federal Social Security Act, any federal, state, or local income disability act, or any other public program;
(b) under any health, sickness, or income disability insurance or automobile accident insurance that provides health benefits or income disability coverage, and any other similar insurance benefits available to the plaintiff, except life insurance;
(c) under any contract or agreement of any person, group, organization, partnership, or corporation to provide, pay for, or reimburse the costs of hospital, medical, dental, or other health care services, except gifts or gratuitous contributions or assistance;
(d) any contractual or voluntary wage continuation plan provided by an employer or other system intended to provide wages during a period of disability; and
(e) any other source, except the assets of the plaintiff or of the plaintiff's immediate family if the plaintiff is obligated to repay a member of the plaintiff's immediate family.
(2) "Health care provider" includes hospitals, institutions, laboratories, doctors, physicians, optometrists, dentists, nurses, therapists, and any other medical or health care facilities, professionals or persons who diagnose, evaluate, treat, or otherwise deliver medical services or treatment to a plaintiff.
(3) (a) "Medical services or treatment" means any actions taken by a health care provider to observe, identify, diagnose, stabilize, address, ameliorate, correct, remedy, rehabilitate, manage, combat, or care for a plaintiff's injury, condition, disease, or disorder or symptoms of a plaintiff's injury, condition, disease, or disorder.
(b) The term includes any equipment, facilities, medicines, drugs, prescriptions, devices, or products provided or applied to a plaintiff by a health care provider or consumed by a plaintiff at a health care provider's direction.
(4) "Person" includes individuals, corporations, associations, societies, firms, partnerships, joint-stock companies, government entities, political subdivisions, and any other entity or aggregate of individuals.
(5) (a) "Plaintiff" means a person who alleges to have sustained bodily injury, or on whose behalf recovery for bodily injury or death is sought, or who would have a beneficial, legal, or equitable interest in a recovery.
(b) The term includes:
(i) a legal representative;
(ii) a person with a wrongful death or surviving cause of action;
(iii) a person seeking recovery on a claim for loss of consortium, society, assistance, companionship, or services; and
(iv) any other person whose right of recovery or whose claim or status is derivative of one who has sustained bodily injury or death.
History: En. Sec. 1, Ch. 628, L. 1987; amd. Sec. 132, Ch. 42, L. 1997; amd. Sec. 3, Ch. 327, L. 2021.