Court Opinion

ID: 9631990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:58:17.560924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:51.240784
License: Public Domain

Lockett, J.,
concurring: I agree with the Court that K.S.A. 1986 Supp. 60-3403 violates the equal protection clause of the Rill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional. However, I do not endorse a further division of the traditional two-tier approach to equal protection analysis by the adoption of “heightened scrutiny,” nor do I believe such an adoption is necessary to reach the court’s result.
In our common-law system, a decision declaring the rights of *679parties is based on one of several devices available to the court, such as a maxim, a doctrine, a precedent, a statute, or public policy.
The power of the legislature as the direct representative of the people first allows the legislature to determine public policy. Where the legislature has declared the public policy clearly, the courts may only determine its constitutionality. Where the legislature has enacted statutory provisions that do not unequivocally state the public policy, the courts may interpret the intention of the legislature. If the legislature fails to state clearly the public policy, then a court in a proper case and controversy may declare the legislature’s statement void for vagueness. If the legislature fails or refuses to state the public policy, only then may the courts determine the public policy.
The role of the courts in equal protection cases is to determine the constitutionality of legislation which classifies similar groups of individuals unequally. In some cases, the classification itself is designated as “suspect.” In others, while the classification is not suspect, the individual right affected is denominated as “fundamental”. If the case involves fundamental rights or suspect classifications, legislation will be subject to strict judicial scrutiny, and will prevail only if justified by “compelling state interest.” On the other hand, state regulation bearing upon rights and classifications not so denominated are subject to less rigorous judicial scrutiny. Such legislation will pass the constitutional test if the purpose of the classification has a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike, or if it bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of thé legislation. The litmus test merely depends upon whether the right is or is not fundamental or whether the classification is or is not suspect.
A fundamental right exists only if explicitly or implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. The court here has recognized that the rights implicated by the statute in question cannot be designated as fundamental and that strict scrutiny is not the proper level of analysis in this case. Instead, the court chooses to adopt a third level of analysis, “heightened scrutiny,” as a basis for striking down the statute. Citing the United States Supreme *680Court decision in Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 50 L. Ed. 2d 397, 97 S. Ct. 451 (1976), the court states that heightened scrutiny requires the statutory classification to “substantially further a legitimate legislative purpose” as well as to embody a “direct relationship between the classification and the state’s goal.”
I do not agree that decisions of the United States Supreme Court have clearly established a third level of scrutiny to be applied in equal protection cases. Rather, as the dissent states, the Supreme Court has restricted intermediate scrutiny and has declined to extend the doctrine beyond cases involving gender and illegitimacy. See Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 49 L. Ed. 2d 520, 96 S. Ct. 2562 (1976) (age), and Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 87 L. Ed. 2d 313, 105 S. Ct. 3249 (1985) (mental retardation).
The instant case deals with a rule of evidence which applies to tort victims injured by negligent health care providers. Since it does not involve a suspect class or a fundamental right, or any discrimination based on gender or illegitimacy, I believe that the rational relationship test should be applied. However, even under this test, basic tenets of fairness and equality must not and cannot be abandoned. Even in forms of legislation analyzed under the rational relationship test, we must still seek the assurance that the classification at issue bears a fair relationship to a legitimate public purpose.
Those who are injured by the act of a negligent tortfeasor form a separate class. By enacting K.S.A. 1986 Supp. 60-3403, the legislature has, in effect, split this class of tort victims by making evidence of collateral source payments admissible solely in cases involving victims of medical negligence. It is unjust and patently unfair to single out those injured by health care providers and allow juries in such cases to consider collateral source payments and potentially reduce awards.
Equal justice requires that all who are injured by another’s negligent act have an equal right to compensation from the negligent tortfeasor, regardless of any classification that the legislature has attempted to impose. We are not correcting the legislature, we are simply performing our constitutional duty by deciding that the creation of separate classes of tort victims based on the classification of the tortfeasor is unconstitutional. The *681legislature has powers separate from the judiciary. If the legislature wishes to change the rules of evidence by abrogating the collateral source rule, it may do so if it is applied equally to all who are injured by the negligent acts of another.
Finally, I believe it is incumbent to point out that K.S.A. 1986 Supp. 60-3403 contains an inherent ambiguity which could produce difficulties in application. Subsection (a) states:
“In any medical malpractice liability action, evidence of the amount of reimbursement or indemnification paid or to be paid to or for the benefit of a claimant under the following shall be admissible . . . (Emphasis supplied.)
Subsection (b) states:
“When evidence of reimbursement or indemnification of a claimant is admitted pursuant to subsection (a), the claimant may present evidence of any amounts paid to secure the right to such reimbursement . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus, the admission of evidence of payments by the claimant to secure any type of reimbursement appears permissive and discretionary while admission of evidence of collateral source payments to the claimant is mandatory. As written, the statute could be interpreted to give a judge in a particular case the discretion to admit or exclude evidence of a plaintiff s payments. It is unlikely that the intent of the legislature in enacting this statute was to confer greater rights upon defendants than upon plaintiffs.
Allegrucci, J., joins the foregoing concurring opinion.
Holmes, J.