Court Opinion

ID: 9739104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:08:47.350347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.025235
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring specialty)-
I join in the court’s opinion, but because there will be a new trial on damages, I thought I might comment on a matter likely to reoccur at re-trial.
In this subrogation action, Ettinger is seeking to recover $95,000 from the defendant tortfeasor, this sum being the amount of workers’ compensation benefits paid its injured employee. Ettinger (and Fireman’s Fund, the compensation insurer) must prove its employee sustained injuries which resulted in medical expenses, lost wages past and future, and loss of earning capacity insofar as they duplicate the losses covered by the compensation benefits. If the jury’s award is more than the amount of the subrogation claim, the court reduces the recovery to the amount of benefits paid.
Here defendant sought to call an expert on workers’ compensation to testify that *35Fireman’s Fund overpaid temporary total disability, temporary partial disability, and permanent partial disability. The expert would also have testified that the compensation carrier was at fault in not obtaining an independent medical examination and in not attempting to find work for the employee. The trial court correctly rejected this testimony, but only because it had ruled damages were not a fact issue.
It is of no concern to the third-party tortfeasor if the workers’ compensation carrier paid too much in benefits. The employer in this suit stands in the shoes of the employee, and the defendant tortfeasor is not in a position to revive the workers’ compensation claim, which is a matter between the employee and the employer-insurer. The defendant tortfeasor is the defendant in a common law negligence action, and its defense on damages is whether the wage claim (not the benefit claim) is reasonable and caused by the injury and whether medical expenses were reasonably incurred and reasonable in amount.
The fact that benefits were paid and the amount paid should be made part of the record for the court’s information. The jury, however, need only be told generally that Ettinger (who appears in court as the party plaintiff) has paid compensation benefits for which it seeks recovery, with no mention of specifics such as the amount. So long as the employer does not introduce the amount of benefits paid in an effort to lend credence to its common law damages claim, there is no reason for the defendant to bring in experts on workers’ compensation. These third-party tort actions are complicated enough without complicating them further.