Schaffer v. Curtis-Perrin
| Decision Date | 25 March 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 30452.,30452. |
| Citation | 141 Idaho 356,109 P.3d 1098 |
| Parties | Paula SCHAFFER and William A. Schaffer, wife and husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Misty CURTIS-PERRIN and John Doe Perrin, wife and husband, Defendants-Respondents. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Owens, James, Vernon & Weeks, P.A., Coeur d'Alene, for appellants. Craig K. Vernon argued.
Elam & Burke, P.A., Boise, for respondents. Jeffrey A. Thomson argued.
Paula and William Schaffer appeal the district court's Order Amending Judgment, which reduced their jury award under I.C. § 41-1840. At issue are (1) whether respondent Misty Curtis-Perrin's insurance company paid the expenses for which she sought the credit; and (2) whether the district court erred in deducting medical expenses from a general verdict where those medical expenses were sought at trial.
Curtis-Perrin crashed her car into Paula Schaffer's car on July 20, 2001, and Schaffer was injured. Both Schaffer and Curtis-Perrin were insured by State Farm. Schaffer was paid $9,854.97 under her policy for certain of her medical expenses. Schaffer filed suit on August 16, 2002, seeking damages for her personal injuries. On November 26, 2002, Curtis-Perrin's claims representative received a subrogation claim from Schaffer's claims representative. On December 24, 2002, Curtis-Perrin's claims representative tendered a check in the amount of $7,500, which was accepted "in full settlement" of the subrogation claim.
The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict in Schaffer's favor on September 12, 2003. The jury found Curtis-Perrin 100 percent at fault and awarded Schaffer $100,000 in total damages. The jury did not, however, specify how much (if any) was for medical expenses. The district court entered a judgment on that verdict. Upon Curtis-Perrin's motion to reduce the verdict pursuant to I.C. § 41-1840, the court heard the parties' arguments. It concluded that Curtis-Perrin's insurance company was entitled to a credit under section 41-1840, and ordered that the entire $9,854.97 be deducted from the judgment. Schaffer appealed.
We review orders on motions to amend judgments for an abuse of discretion. Slaathaug v. Allstate Ins. Co., 132 Idaho 705, 707, 979 P.2d 107, 109 (1999). This requires us to conduct a three-part inquiry: (1) whether the trial court correctly perceived the issues as ones of discretion; (2) whether the trial court acted within the outer boundaries of that discretion and consistent with the legal principles applicable to specific choices; and (3) whether the trial court's decision was a product of reasoned decisionmaking. Sun Valley Shopping Ctr. v. Idaho Power Co., 119 Idaho 87, 94, 803 P.2d 993, 1000 (1991). If the answers to those three queries are affirmative, we will not disturb the trial court's decision. Id., 803 P.2d at 1000.
Each party contends her insurance company paid the $9,854.97 in pre-verdict medical expenses. Idaho Code § 41-1840 provides:
If Schaffer's insurance company paid the medical expenses, Curtis-Perrin was not entitled to a credit. If, on the other hand, Curtis-Perrin's insurance company paid the medical expenses, Curtis-Perrin was entitled to a credit under section 41-1840.
The district court did not identify any particular facts in concluding that the $9,854.97 had been paid by Curtis-Perrin's insurance company. However, it is clear that $7,500 was paid from Curtis-Perrin's account to Schaffer's account. William Holstein, Curtis-Perrin's State Farm claims representative, explained that the subrogation claim came from "plaintiff's insurance company, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company", as though the two were different entities. The check was written by Mr. Holstein, payable on the account of "State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company" of Salem, Oregon. It was payable to "State Farm Insurance Co." of Coeur d'Alene. At oral argument, Curtis-Perrin's counsel affirmed that each party's State Farm was the same company.
Idaho's appellate courts have yet to consider the applicability of section 41-1840 in such a situation. We see no reason for not applying the section. Thus, even where plaintiff's and defendant's insurance carriers are the same, and an amount is paid from defendant's account to plaintiff's account, defendant is entitled to the credit regardless of whether the parties were insured by the same company. Whatever corporate umbrella Schaffer and Curtis-Perrin may have shared, the two clearly had separate accounts; thus, the effect is the same as if they were insured by different companies.
Schaffer points out that Curtis-Perrin's claims representative did not pay the $7,500 until nearly a year and a half after the accident. She claims the purpose of the statute — to encourage tortfeasors and their insurers to alleviate financial hardship on accident victims, see Turner v. Willis, 116 Idaho 682, 685, 778 P.2d 804, 807 (1989) — is not served by allowing a credit for expenses paid where the payment is not made until long after the plaintiff's carrier has paid plaintiff. The statute, however, does not prescribe a timeline that defendant must follow in order to receive the credit. It simply refers to a "payment or payments made by any person or by his insurer by virtue of an insurance policy, on account of bodily injury ... of another." I.C. § 41-1840(1). The legislature could have required a certain level of promptness. It did not. Therefore, we conclude that simply because Schaffer's insurance company paid the expenses first and Curtis-Perrin's claims representative waited a year and a half to reimburse Schaffer's carrier is of no moment to the issue of Curtis-Perrin's entitlement to a credit.
Assuming Curtis-Perrin is entitled to the credit, the question becomes how much? Curtis-Perrin's claims representative actually paid $7,500. Even though the $7,500 represents settlement of a $9,854.97 claim, the statute refers to "payment or payments." The statute says nothing about allowing defendant a credit for any amount beyond what she or her carrier actually paid. The actual amount of the payment made by Curtis-Perrin's carrier was $7,500 and that is the appropriate amount of the credit.
Under section 41-1840, all payments made by a defendant on account of bodily injury or death or damage to or loss of property of another "shall be credited upon any settlement with respect to the same damage, expense or loss made by, or judgment or award rendered therefore ..." Our Court of Appeals has read this section to mean that defendant's credit is limited to those payments that defendant made and which plaintiff sought and recovered at trial. Beale v. Speck, 127 Idaho 521, 538, 903 P.2d 110, 127 (Ct.App.1995). We believe this reading to be sound. The record discloses that Schaffer's claim for medical expenses included those which were prepaid. The parties agree that she presented the jury with evidence of roughly $26,000 in medical expenses. Our inquiry, then, is whether Schaffer's award included the medical expenses prepaid by Curtis-Perrin.
On the verdict form, the jury was asked to allocate the respective percentages of fault and simply identify Schaffer's "total amount of damages." The jury attributed 100 percent of the fault to Curtis-Perrin and awarded Schaffer $100,000. In crediting the expenses prepaid by Curtis-Perrin, the district judge explained his decision as follows:
[T]he jury did have an opportunity to consider medical bills and expenses as to whether they were reasonably related to the accident. They came up with a sum of $100,000, which could reasonably be inferred to encompass all of the $26,029.11 that [was] set forth in plaintiffs' offer and compilation of billings in Exhibit 13 as well as an amount of compensatory general damages. While the court does not have a special verdict form that delineate[s] precisely whether they considered and grant[ed] all those, I think from the court's review of the case and the evidence that was submitted in the final verdict, that the court can safely conclude that the amount of money that was paid out by defendant's insurance company to the plaintiffs' insurance company in subrogation was in fact for medical expenses that were ultimately awarded and encompassed in the jury verdict.
Schaffer argues that Curtis-Perrin was not entitled to any credit because the court could not determine what amounts in the jury's verdict, if any, were for expenses subject to be being credited (creditable expenses). The only way to know what amounts were for creditable expenses, she contends, was for Curtis-Perrin to submit a jury verdict form identifying those portions of the award that covered such expenses. Curtis-Perrin counters that this Court has never required a verdict form identifying which portion of an award is for creditable expenses and which is not.
We have not required defendants to submit special verdict forms when both creditable and non-creditable...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Fischer v. City of Ketchum
- Ralph Naylor Farms, LLC v. Latah County
- Gardiner v. BOUNDARY COUNTY BD. OF COM'RS
-
Carlson v. Stanger
...entitled to await the outcome at trial and then negotiate the subrogation claim with his insurance is refuted by Schaffer v. Curtis-Perrin, 141 Idaho 356, 109 P.3d 1098 (2005). In that case, Schaffer was injured when Curtis-Perrin crashed her vehicle into Schaffer's car. Schaffer received p......