Court Opinion

ID: 9459823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:32:42.571461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:21.174886
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I agree with Judge Friendly that Blake’s recovery of hospital bills which had been paid in the first instance by *208the railroad and not by Blake is shockingly unjust. I cannot agree, however, that Blake is nevertheless entitled to recover these amounts. Section 5 of the F.E.L.A., 45 U.S.C. § 55 was never intended to apply to situations such as the present one, see Hall v. Minnesota Transfer Railway Co., 322 F.Supp. 92 (D.Minn.1971), and the collateral source rule should not be interpreted to bar a set off by the railroad of the hospital bills paid by it. To permit recovery of these amounts would be to allow plaintiff double recovery and, to that extent, provide encouragement to an employee to incur needless hospital bills in order to gain a windfall. Such a result seems to me to be clearly contrary to public policy. We should not permit a judgment of a federal court to be the means of accomplishing such an injustice.
I also object to the district court’s refusal to charge, at defense counsel’s request, that any award that the jury might make would not be subject to income taxes. It is becoming increasingly apparent to those who try jury cases, as I do from time to time, that the question of whether any judgment will be diminished by taxes is a matter which is frequently given great weight in jury deliberations. Since it does affect the verdict, it is a matter regarding which the jury should be informed. It seems quite probable, for example, that in this case the judgment of $25,000 — which seems overly generous in the light of plaintiff’s injuries and only five months loss of earnings — was very likely due to one or more of the jurors feeling, erroneously, that any judgment would be considerably diminished by taxes. It is time for this court to re-examine its holding in McWeeney v. New York, N.H. & H. R.R. Co., 282 F.2d 34 (2d Cir.), cert, denied, 364 U.S. 870, 81 S.Ct. 115, 5 L.Ed.2d 93 (1960), and require that the jury be instructed about the tax incidents of a judgment when request is made of the trial judge to do so. The Third Circuit has recently required the giving of an instruction of this nature, upon request, in Domeracki v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 443 F.2d 1245 (3rd Cir), cert, denied, 404 U.S. 883, 92 S.Ct. 212, 30 L. Ed.2d 165 (1971). This is one way in which our courts can properly do something to curb escalating verdicts without subtracting one iota from a fair and just recovery of damages suffered.
For these reasons I would reverse the judgment and order a new trial.