|
The
Tennessee Supreme Court issued a very important decision today on the appeal in
the Dedmon case. Many people have
been waiting on this decision from the plaintiff’s side and the defendant’s
side. The Dedmon case was the case
where the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that defendants, in personal injury
cases, could introduce evidence of the discounted amounts accepted by health providers
or paid by insurance companies. I
previously blogged on this
prior ruling here.
The
Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the key part of the prior Tennessee Court of
Appeals decision today. The key part in
the new case (and a good summary of the current status of the law on this
issue) is the following:
In sum, we hold that
the definition of “reasonable charges” under the Hospital Lien Act set forth in
West v.
Shelby County Healthcare Corp., 459 S.W.3d 33 (Tenn. 2014), does not apply
directly to determinations of “reasonable medical expenses” in personal injury
cases; the West definition of “reasonable charges” is limited in application to
interpretation of the Hospital Lien Act. We also decline to alter existing law
in Tennessee regarding the collateral source rule. Consequently, the Plaintiffs
may submit evidence of Mrs. Dedmon’s full, undiscounted medical bills as proof
of her “reasonable medical expenses,” and the Defendants are precluded from submitting
evidence of discounted rates for medical services accepted by medical providers
as a result of Mrs. Dedmon’s insurance.
The Defendants remain free to submit any other competent evidence to rebut the
Plaintiffs’ proof on the reasonableness of Mrs. Dedmon’s medical expenses, so
long as the Defendants’ proof does not contravene the collateral source
rule. Thus, we affirm the Court of
Appeals’ decision to reverse the trial court’s grant of the Defendants’ motion
in limine, but we reverse the Court of Appeals to the extent that it held that
the Defendants could introduce evidence of lesser amounts accepted by Mrs.
Dedmon’s medical providers in order to rebut the Plaintiffs’ proof on
reasonableness.
As
a result, this basically returns the status of the law on this issue in
Tennessee to the prior status quo. Usually,
the only evidence that a jury will now hear about the medical bills in a case
is the amount of the medical bills charged by the medical care provider. This effectively greatly inflates (in many
situations) the amount of “medical bills” for an injury. However, this is the law in Tennessee. I expect this will not be the end of this
issue and the Tennessee Legislature will take a look at trying to find a
solution in the coming years.
The complete decision
can be found at this link: Jean
Dedmon v. Debbie Steelman et al, No. W2015-01462-SC-R11-CV (Tenn. 2017). Follow me on Twitter at @jasonalee for updates from the Tennessee Defense Litigation blog.
|