Opinion ID: 1199771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Issue Six Collateral Source Evidence

Text: The Hospital contends the trial court erred in keeping collateral source evidence from the jury. Collateral source evidence relates to benefits received by the plaintiff from sources wholly independent of and collateral to the wrongdoer. Bowman v. Whitelock, 43 Wn. App. 353, 357, 717 P.2d 303 (1986). In the context of health care injuries, the admissibility of this type of evidence is controlled by RCW 7.70.080, which provides as follows: Evidence of compensation from other source. Any party may present evidence to the trier of fact that the patient has already been compensated for the injury complained of from any source except the assets of the patient, his representative, or his immediate family, or insurance purchased with such assets.... RCW 7.70.080. This statute reserves for the finder of fact  in this case, the jury  the task of examining the extent to which the plaintiff has already been compensated by third parties for the injuries incurred by the defendant and the additional task of offsetting these recoveries from the damages being assessed against the defendant. For medical malpractice cases, RCW 7.70.080 replaces the common law's collateral source rule. The collateral source rule, still in effect for certain types of cases, provides that a tortfeasor may not reduce damages, otherwise recoverable, to reflect payments received by a plaintiff from a collateral source, that is, a source independent of the tortfeasor. Lange v. Raef, 34 Wn. App. 701, 704, 664 P.2d 1274 (1983). The primary motivation in doing away with the collateral source rule is the rule allows plaintiffs to recover more than their total damages. Under the collateral source rule, a plaintiff could recover 100 percent of the damages from a liable defendant, even if the plaintiff had already recovered a portion of their damages from another source, such as insurance. Because the rule overcompensated plaintiffs, it came to be viewed as imposing unnecessary costs on society and causing higher insurance premiums. See Daena Goldsmith, Comment, A Survey of the Collateral Source Rule: The Effects of Tort Reform and Impact on Multistate Litigation, 53 J. Air L. & Com. 799, 802-03, 827-29 (1987-1988). The trial court in this case did not follow RCW 7.70.080. The court did not allow the jury to hear and evaluate certain collateral source evidence being proffered by the Hospital. [11] Instead, the trial judge instructed the parties that he himself would decide any appropriate collateral source offsets as part of a posttrial hearing. [27] The trial court committed error in this regard, but we find it to be harmless. The only difference between the trial court's approach and RCW 7.70.080 concerned who would be making the determination. The trial court would be reducing the damage award by the appropriate offset for collateral source payments, just as the jury would have had responsibility for doing had the evidence been admitted at trial. The outcome should be the same under either approach. The primary goal in eliminating the collateral source rule has been to prevent overcompensating plaintiffs in light of the resulting costs to society. This goal is met whether the offset called for in RCW 7.70.080 is conducted by the jury or the trial judge. Moreover, in the many states where legislatures have abrogated the collateral source rule in medical malpractice actions, legislatures have been almost evenly split on whether the court or the jury will hear evidence that the plaintiff received collateral benefits. Goldsmith, Comment, 53 J. Air L. & Com. at 820. Accordingly, the purpose of eliminating the collateral source rule is met whether the determination is made by the court or the jury. We are disinclined to reverse the jury verdict and require another 5-week trial merely because the judge, rather than the jury, took on responsibility for deciding the offset called for in RCW 7.70.080. We hold the error to be harmless. While we do not condone the trial court's failure to follow RCW 7.70.080 in its entirety, and we strongly encourage trial courts to fully follow the statute in the future, we find no reversible error. We affirm the judgment below. ANDERSEN, C.J., AND UTTER, BRACHTENBACH, DOLLIVER, SMITH, GUY, and MADSEN, JJ., concur.