Opinion ID: 874018
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The district court erred in denying Boise Tire's motion to reduce the damage award by the amount of Jose's past social security disability benefits.

Text: The district court correctly concluded that benefits that are anticipated to be received by a plaintiff in the future do not fall within I.C. § 6-1606. The court held that, [b]ased on the plain language of I.C. § 6-1606, the court may only offset the award to the extent of past payments from collateral sources. The court reached this conclusion based on Department of Health & Welfare v. Hudelson, 146 Idaho 439, 447, 196 P.3d 905, 913 (2008), where this Court held that applicability of I.C. § 6-1606 is limited to past benefits paid because the plain language of the statute only addresses the payment of benefits in the past tense. We reiterate that within I.C. § 6-1606, each reference to receipt of collateral source benefits is phrased in the past tense. We therefore affirm the district court's holding that the statute limits deductible collateral source payments to those paid up until judgment was entered. However, disability benefits received from governmental sources are amounts received by the claimant from collateral sources as compensation for the personal injury.... We therefore disagree with the trial court's conclusion that such benefits are not deductible collateral source payments. We vacate the judgment as to Jose's personal injury award and remand to the district court to reduce the award by the amount of Jose's social security disability benefits received at the time the court originally entered judgment.