Opinion ID: 2586049
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Recovery of Insurance Payment

Text: ¶ 20 Mazon's complaint sought recovery of his insurance payment under each of the four causes of action he alleged. The Court of Appeals held the collateral source rule applied to give Mazon a basis for recovering the $50,000 settlement his insurance carrier paid Layouni. The Court of Appeals did not identify the cause of action on which it deemed Mazon was entitled to recover from Krafchick. By failing to identify the basis for ruling that Mazon was entitled to recover the settlement amount his insurance company paid to Layouni, the Court of Appeals evidently applied the collateral source rule as an equitable cause of action, not an evidentiary rule. ¶ 21 The Court of Appeals may have believed Mazon was entitled to relief under his indemnity cause of action from Krafchick because the parties both believed the trial court granted Mazon's indemnification claim. But Mazon and Krafchick had no contractual agreement to indemnify each other, and Mazon provides no legal basis for a right to indemnification from Krafchick. ¶ 22 If Mazon's claim for indemnity is analyzed as a claim for contribution, he is still not entitled to relief from Krafchick. In the absence of contractual indemnity, a party's right to contribution, also referred to as equitable indemnity, is governed by chapter 4.22 RCW. Contribution is [a] tortfeaser's right to collect from others responsible for the same tort after the tortfeaser has paid more than his or her proportionate share, the shares being determined as a percentage of fault. Black's Law Dictionary 353 (8th ed.2004). The contribution statute provides that the right of contribution is limited to parties who have been held jointly and severally liable for the plaintiff's injury. RCW 4.22.070. ¶ 23 Joint and several liability, which gives rise to a claim for contribution, only exists in limited circumstances, including where the plaintiff is free of fault and judgment has been entered against two or more defendants. RCW 4.22.070. We have interpreted this provision to mean that [s]ettling parties, released parties, and immune parties are not parties against whom judgment is entered and will not be jointly and severally liable. . . . Kottler v. State, 136 Wash.2d 437, 447, 963 P.2d 834 (1998). Mazon does not establish that he meets any of the limited circumstances where defendants are considered jointly and severally liable. Although Layouni may have been free of fault, no judgment was entered against Mazon and Krafchick. Therefore, they were not held jointly and severally liable, and Mazon is not entitled to contribution. Because Mazon is not entitled to indemnity or contribution from Krafchick, Mazon is not entitled to recover and the collateral source rule is inapplicable. ¶ 24 The collateral source rule is an evidentiary principle that enables an injured party to recover compensatory damages from a tortfeaser without regard to payments the injured party received from a source independent of a tortfeaser. Johnson v. Weyerhaeuser Co., 134 Wash.2d 795, 798, 953 P.2d 800 (1998). The rule comes from tort principles as a means of ensuring that a fact finder will not reduce a defendant's liability because the claimant received money from other sources, such as insurance carriers. This rule, however, does not create a cause of action and does not apply under the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals erroneously applied the collateral source rule as an equitable cause of action, allowing Mazon to recover the amount paid by his insurance carrier because of Krafchick's negligence.