Opinion ID: 2602113
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Collateral Offsets

Text: {20} Joshua argues that the Court of Appeals did not comply with the Special Master's directive that collateral offsets be applied to the share of the individual who received the benefit. According to Joshua, this directive requires that individual shares of the award received by Rebecca and Trae be reduced by the amount of collateral benefits assigned to them in the Special Master's letter. Essentially, Joshua's position is that it would be unfair for Rebecca to receive any of the Fund award when she has already received over $1 million in collateral benefits which, in turn, served to reduce the global award, lessening the amount left for distribution to Joshua and all other beneficiaries. Thus, Joshua argues that the collateral benefits received by Rebecca and Trae should be deducted from their individual portions of the final award and added to his award to bring it closer to the amount he would have received if not for those collateral benefits given to Rebecca and Trae. {21} The calculations under Joshua's argument would lead to the following result. Rebecca's share of the award, prior to offsetting for collateral benefits, would equal (a) $100,000 non-economic loss award as Alfred's spouse, (b) one-quarter of the $250,000 non-economic loss award to the Estate ($62,500), as directed by the New Mexico intestacy statutes, and (c) one-half of the total economic loss award (prior to subtracting collateral offsets) of $1,397,969.88, or $698,984.94, as directed under the New Mexico wrongful death statutes. When these amounts are added together, Rebecca's share would come to $861,484.94. But Rebecca has already received $1,012,321.00 in collateral benefits, and therefore when one is offset against the other Rebecca would not be entitled to anything at all from the Fund award. [1] Turning to Trae's share of the award, $100,000 in non-economic loss as a dependent of Alfred, Joshua would offset Trae's collateral benefits ($23,177) and reduce Trae's share to $76,823. When Trae's $76,823 is subtracted from the final award of $769,971.88, Joshua would receive the balance or $693,148.88. {22} Rebecca argues that the collateral offsets are only applied initially by the Special Master to reduce the gross award, but should not be applied to reduce individual allocations from the total award. Thus, she argues that the $769,971.88 actually received from the Special Master already takes into account the collateral benefits, and the final award should simply be divided as is, without accounting for each beneficiary's collateral offsets. The calculations under Rebecca's argument would be as follows. The Special Master awarded a total amount of $1,847,969.88 and then reduced that amount by the total amount of collateral benefits received by all the beneficiaries to reach a final award amount of $769,971.88. This final amount would then be distributed under state law as directed by the Special Master's letter. Rebecca and Trae would each get $100,000. The $250,000 in non-economic loss would be distributed according to New Mexico intestacy law-one-quarter, or $62,500, to Rebecca and three-quarters, or $187,500, to Joshua. Finally, the remaining $319,971.88 would be divided equally between Rebecca and Joshua pursuant to wrongful death law, each receiving $159,985.94. Thus, Trae's total share of the Fund award would be $100,000; Joshua's would be $347,485.94; and Rebecca's would be $322,485.94. This is also the result counseled by the Court of Appeals. {23} Both Rebecca and the Court of Appeals construe Joshua's argument as advocating an impermissible reallocation of what the Special Master has already calculated which would be contrary to federal law. We disagree. See Marchand, 2007-NMCA-138, ¶ 27, 142 N.M. 795, 171 P.3d 309. It is true that the Special Master's calculations are final. But Joshua does not claim that the Special Master incorrectly calculated the amount of collateral benefits attributable to each beneficiary. Rather, Joshua contends that the amount of collateral benefits assigned to each beneficiary should be applied against that individual's share of the award, thereby offsetting each person's share in proportion to the collateral benefits that person has already received. We read the Special Master's letter as directing the application of those offsets to the individual shares, and to that extent we agree with Joshua. However, as we discuss later, we do not agree with Joshua that the offsets apply to all components of the award.