Court Opinion

ID: 9883866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:23:28.762621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:59.805949
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur both in the result and the reasoning of the majority. I am concurring specially to draw attention to the unfairness of the discount provision of the Tort Reform Act as it is applied to young plaintiffs with lifetime injuries.
The numbers in this case form a good starting point. The plaintiff received a verdict for future pain and disability of $30,-000, and the jury found the pain and disability severe enough to last 30 years. Thus, according to the way we interpret the statute, that $30,000 jury verdict is reduced to $15,000. The position of the defendant and the insurance industry would reduce that sum even further down to a lump sum which, after 30 years, would equal $30,000, assuming all principal and interest were rolled over. The defendant’s position is that the $30,000 should be discounted down to $6500.
I take judicial notice of the fact that competent personal injury law firms charge contingent fees ranging from a minimum of 25 percent on minors up to 33¾⅛ to 40 percent on adults, plus reimbursement for all necessary costs and expenses incurred. The fee schedule may seem high, but it is not. The vast majority of plaintiffs cannot afford the prevailing rates of $100 to $250 an hour for competent trial attorneys, plus a requirement that they pay for all expenses, depositions, medical and technical experts up front, as would be the case without the contingent fee.
In a complex personal injury or products liability case with highly technical and medical questions, out of pocket costs for discovery and experts through a trial can run into thousands of dollars. Thus, the right of severely injured plaintiffs to go into court and seek redress would be irrevocably weakened, if not completely destroyed, if contingency fee arrangements were not available. Thus, for competent trial litigators to invest their own time and their own money preparing for trial without a guaranteed fee, the standard contingency fee of 33⅛ percent of any recovery is an absolute necessity for them to justify involvement.
In this case, after deducting a one-third fee, the plaintiff will likely net only $8000 to $9000 out of the $15,026 discounted verdict, depending on the amount of pretrial and trial expenses. Under the defendant’s version of a one time lump sum amount of $6500, the plaintiff, whom the jury found had pain and disability that would last 30 years, would net approximately $4000 after deduction of a contingency fee and some normal pretrial and trial expenses.
Here, the plaintiff was a woman with an age of 41. Assuming the plaintiff had been a two or three year old baby, and the jury had found the future pain and disability would last a lifetime, (e.g. life expectancy of say 68-70 years), the same payment and disability award of $30,000 would have *441been cut well below $10,000 on the annuity basis, leaving a probable net to the injured plaintiff of $5000 to $6000, or less, and on a lump sum basis, a two or three year old plaintiff with this lifetime injury, and a $30,000 future pain and disability verdict, would have netted just several hundred dollars!
The anomaly and the patent unfairness becomes clear when comparing very young plaintiffs to very old. Assume an elderly person with a life expectancy of five to six years received the same verdict of $30,000 for future pain and disability. The discounted basis would only reduce it a few thousand dollars, and the lump sum basis not much more. On the other hand, the young plaintiff for the same injuries receives virtually nothing.
Supposedly, the more severely one is injured, and the longer the future pain, disability, and permanancy is supposed to last, the more money your injuries are worth. The discounted formula under the Tort Reform Act puts plaintiff in the bizarre position of realizing most of a jury verdict only when the jury finds injuries that will last for just a few years, or when the jury is dealing with an elderly plaintiff whose life expectancy is short.
Assume two ten year old plaintiffs with identical injuries. One jury awards $100,-000 and finds that those injuries will last for the lifetime of the plaintiff. That plaintiff’s verdict under the discount basis will be reduced below one-half of the $100,000. If the other jury finds that, although the injuries are severe, they will last only for seven or eight years and so indicates on their special interrogatories, the second plaintiff will receive a substantial portion of the $100,000.
The legislature has the authority to pass laws, such as the Tort Reform Act, which regulate the insurance industry and the practice of law. However, I’m not sure if the blatant unfairness to young plaintiffs with lifetime injuries was contemplated. A possible method of correcting this inequity would be to reduce the discount range to a minimum of one and a maximum of three percent, and further provide that in no case would any plaintiff receive less than 75 percent of the jury verdict for future pain and disability.
The present lump sum basis argument, which the defendant urges on us, would virtually destroy the right of young plaintiffs with lifetime injuries, after the deduction of necessary legal fees and trial costs, to net an amount anywhere near that needed to make them whole for their losses. Under the discount method which we approve today, the problem is only slightly alleviated. I believe we have correctly applied the law, as it exists today, to the facts, but further study is needed.