Opinion ID: 2359413
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: molding the verdict

Text: Finally, plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in molding the verdict by deducting $15,000 from the jury's award of $110,000. The amount deducted represented the possible wage loss benefits collectible by plaintiff from her no-fault carrier under Section 202(b) of the No-fault Act. Since this appeal was filed, our court has squarely decided the issue in favor of plaintiff. Williams v. Dulaney, 331 Pa.Super. 373, 480 A.2d 1080 (1984). In Williams we held that the No-fault Act does not provide basic loss benefits for lost earning capacity, but only for recovery of wages actually lost. There, the evidence before the jury was clear that the plaintiff had lost wages of exactly $1,481.55, all of which had been compensated by her no-fault carrier. We reversed the order of the court deducting $15,000 from the verdict and modified the judgment to reflect a deduction in the amount of the lost wages which had been recovered. We recognized that the plaintiff had returned to work on a full-time basis and it was unlikely that she will suffer any further actual wage loss due to the accident. In the appeal now before us, there was no evidence submitted to the jury by either party as to plaintiff's wage loss benefits. Nor was there any attempt by defendant to prove a setoff. One week after trial, plaintiff submitted her exceptions to the court's order molding the verdict. The exceptions averred that work loss benefit payments were in the amount of $3,020. The trial court accepted that figure of actual wage loss benefit in its opinion of June 22, 1983, filed in response to plaintiff's exceptions. In her brief to this court on appeal, plaintiff concedes that the verdict should have been set off in the amount of $3,020. We thus will vacate so much of the order of the trial court as deducted $15,000 from the award for economic loss, and modify the judgment to reflect a deduction of $3,020.