Opinion ID: 2639911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Did the District Court Err in Denying Kelleher's Motion to Reduce the Judgment by the Amount of Slack's Medicare Benefits?

Text: At trial, Slack offered evidence showing that her medical expenses totaled $83,894.33. Because she was a Medicare patient, her medical expenses were mandatorily reduced below that amount due to Medicare regulations and federal law. Kelleher filed a motion seeking to have the Medicare write-downs treated as a collateral source under Idaho Code § 6-1606. The district court denied the motion. Five months later we released our opinion in Dyet v. McKinley, 139 Idaho 526, 81 P.3d 1236 (2003), in which we held that such write-downs are to be treated as a collateral source. On appeal, Slack asks us to overrule Dyet, but we are not persuaded that it is incorrect. Therefore, the district court erred in denying Kelleher's motion to treat the write-downs as a collateral source. This case will have to be remanded for the district court to reduce the judgment by the appropriate amount.