A recent ruling by the Tennessee Court of Appeals in Patton v. Pearson1 upheld the ‘Sutton Rule’ in a subrogation action following a house fire at a rental property. The court’s decision emphasizes the crucial role of lease...more
Maritime and admiralty law can be vastly different from the law in North Carolina. One area of continued interest to the maritime bar is how admiralty law should treat evidence of medical expenses, especially in light of the...more
In another significant opinion from the North Carolina appellate courts, the Court of Appeals recently expanded the application of the collateral source rule to negligence claims arising out of construction disputes in a case...more
Legal doctrines develop over time, with judges determined to allocate blame and risk fairly. One such doctrine – an old one – is the “one recovery” rule. The one recovery rule basically means that an injured party should only...more
With public appetite for tort reform mounting in recent years, the Louisiana legislature acted and passed the Civil Justice Reform Act of 2020 (“CJRA”). Governor John Bel Edwards signed the CJRA in 2020. The resulting...more
Tort reform has ushered in legislation imposing caps on damages in jurisdictions across the country. Unsurprisingly, these statutory caps on damages have faced numerous challenges, leading to a hodgepodge set of rules across...more
For years a battle has been raging in the United States over whether a personal injury plaintiff can recover from the tortfeasor, by way of medical specials, (1) the “face amount” of her medical bills for accident-related...more
Stokes v. Muschinske, No. B280116, 2019 WL 1513208 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 14, 2019) (awaiting official publication) begs the question, does reference to a plaintiff’s membership in a health care plan, like Kaiser Permanente, or...more
In negligence actions, Virginia has long adhered to the “collateral source rule” which holds that payments received by an injured plaintiff from a source other than the tortfeasor/defendant are not deducted from the damages...more
Real Property Update - - Chapter 720 / Prevailing Party Fees: developer that successfully defended against association’s lawsuit for declaratory and injunctive relief was properly awarded prevailing party attorneys’ fees...more
South Carolina has long recognized the common law collateral source rule. The rule provides that any compensation received by an injured party from a source independent of the tortfeasor cannot be applied to reduce damages...more
On June 12, 2018, the Court of Appeals granted relief to municipalities such as the City of New York that exempt its uniformed service members from the Workers Compensation system. In Andino v. Mills, 2018 Slip Op 04273, the...more
“Litigation investment” companies have been in the news frequently in the past year, and state legislatures and courts are taking note and taking action. ...more
Last month the Tennessee Supreme Court, in Dedmon v. Steelman, affirmed the long-standing collateral source rule in personal injury cases. As long as an injured plaintiff can establish that the medical expenses they incurred...more
In a stunning reversal of what appeared to be the trend towards discounted medical damages in personal-injury cases, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on Friday, November 17, 2017, that the Collateral Source Rule reigns...more
The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all South Carolina employers) recently decided a religious accommodation case in which a jury awarded a former employee more than half a million dollars. The Equal...more
What kills between 250,000 and 440,000 people in the United States each year; 700 deaths per day? What is the third leading cause of death in America? Isn’t it one of the responsibilities of the US Congress to...more
In an eminently reasonable, but apparently (surprisingly) res nova decision, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal has clarified that the maritime collateral source rule does not allow for recovery of medical...more
Two recent rulings illustrate the widely varying responses courts have taken in confronting an emerging national issue: how to measure damages for past medical expenses when the hospital’s treatment charges, before discounts...more
In Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc. the California Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff’s recovery of medical damages is limited to the amount paid by the plaintiff’s health insurer and accepted by the health care...more
Originally published in the Tennessee Bar Association - December 1, 2012. Taking Another Look at Fye v. Kennedy - Damages in tort law are designed to compensate for injury and, in the words of one court, “only for...more