Judge Nealon of Lackawanna County Addresses Admissibility of Affordable Care Act to Challenge Claim of Future Medical Expenses in a Malpractice Action

In his recent decision in the case of Vaccaro v. Scranton Quincy Hospital Company, LLC, No. 2014-CV-7675 (C.P. Lacka. Co. Oct. 24, 2016 Nealon, J.), Judge Terrence R. Nealon of the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas addressed the issue of the admissibility of the Affordable Care Act to challenge a Plaintiff’s future life care plan damages evidence.  

This matter pertains to an obstetrical and hospital negligence claim.   The Defendant-obstetrician filed a Motion In Limine seeking leave of court to introduce evidence and cross-examine the Plaintiffs’ economic damages experts on the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires individuals to purchase health insurance and establish limits for annual out-of-pocket expenses.

The defense asserted that these new health insurance provisions provide grounds to reconsider and renounce the common-law collateral source rule that bars evidence of any payments made by a collateral source on behalf of a Plaintiff.  

Judge Nealon noted that, although Section 508(a) of the MCARE Act generally bars a Plaintiff from recovering damages for past medical expenses that are covered by a collateral source Section 509, governing claims for future medical expenses, does not contain comparable language abrogating the collateral source rule for future medical expenses claims.  

Judge Nealon also noted that the only relevant appellate precedent issued by the Pennsylvania Superior Court in the case of Deeds v. University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, 110 A.3d 1009 (Pa. Super. 2015), appeal dismissed, 128 A.3d 764 (Pa. 2015),  resulted in a decision that referenced to the Affordable Care Act’s provisions in malpractice litigation constitutes “a patent violation of the collateral source rule.” 

Accordingly, Judge Nealon denied the Defendant’s Motion In Limine.  

Anyone wishing to review Judge Nealon's decision in Vaccaro may click this LINK.

Quoted in a Recent Article in The Legal Intelligencer on the Impact of Obamacare On the Defense of Medical Expenses Claims in Civil Litigation Matters

Here is a LINK to a recent July 2, 2015 Legal Intelligencer article by Max Mitchell entitled "Can Affordable Care Act Ruling Help the Defense Bar?"

The article outlines the debate on the possible effect of the United States Supreme Court's ruling upholding the validity of Obamacare upon the ability of defense counsel in civil litigation matters to attack claims for recoveries for future medical expenses by asserting that the Plaintiff may have health insurance pursuant to Obamacare.

If you are unable to access the article online, please let me know at dancummins@comcast.net and I will email you a copy.

Mentioning Affordable Care Act at Trial Violates Collateral Source Rule

A recent trend in Pennsylvania personal injury matters involves defense counsel pointing to the Affordable Care Act to support an argument against any recovery of alleged medical expenses claimed by the Plaintiff.  The argument is that such expenses are or will be covered by insurance under the Affordable Care Act and therefore, they need not be awarded by a jury.

Plaintiffs argue that the well-settled Collateral Source Rule should preclude any mention of any benefits from a collateral source in an effort to preclude or diminish the recovery of compensation from the alleged wrongdoer.

While the Collateral Source Rule has been around for a while, the Affordable Care Act is a relatively new law.

By way of background and according to the Medicaid website, "[t]he Affordable Care Act  provides Americans with better health security by putting in place comprehensive health insurance reforms that will:

• Expand coverage,
• Hold insurance companies accountable,
• Lower health care costs,
• Guarantee more choice, and
• Enhance the quality of care for all Americans.

The Affordable Care Act actually refers to two separate pieces of legislation — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-152) — that, together expand Medicaid coverage to millions of low-income Americans and makes numerous improvements to both Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
This section focuses on the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act related to Medicaid and CHIP. If you are interested in the law as a whole, you can:

• Read the Compilation of the Affordable Care Act, or
• Review the law by section."

Source: http://medicaid.gov/affordablecareact/affordable-care-act.html

The issue of whether the defense in a personal injury litigation may refer to the Affordable Care Act during the course of a jury trial was recently addressed in the case of Deeds v. University of Pennsylvania, No. 755 EDA 2014, 2015 Pa. Super. 21 (Pa. Super. Jan. 30, 2015 Lazarus, Wecht, and Strassburger, J.J.)(Opinion by Wecht, J.).

In Deeds, a defense verdict in a medical malpractice case was reversed and remanded for a new trial. 

On appeal, the Plaintiff argued, in part, that she was "entitled to a new trial because the trial court violated the collateral source rule when it 'improperly allowed [the Defendants] to inform the jury that [the Plaintiffs’] substantial medical needs were all being attended to at little to no cost to [the Plaintiffs’] legal guardian due to the existence of state and federal education and medical benefits programs.”  Op. at p. 4.  The defense referred to Medicaid as well as to how President Obama's Affordable Care Act would impact the future care costs in the case.

The Superior Court found these references at trial to be a patent violation of the long-standing Collateral Source Rule, the purpose of which is to "avoid the preclusion or diminution of the damages otherwise recoverable from the wrongdoer based on compensation recovered from a collateral source," and, as such, remanded the case for a new trial.


Anyone wishing to review this decision may click this LINK.


I send thanks to Attorney Paul Oven of the Moosic, PA office of the Dougherty, Leventhal & Price law firm for bringing this case to my attention.


Source of image:  www.fenero.com.