Minor Plaintiff May Recover Own Medical Expenses
John Day posted on Day on Torts about a new opinion from the Tennessee Court of Appeals confirming that a minor may recover for his or her own medical expenses (rather than requiring the victim's parents to pursue the claim for medical expenses.) The case, Palanki v. Vanderbilt University, is also worth a read on the issue of prejudgment interest in personal injury cases, including medical malpractice cases like Palanki.
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Response to Motion in Limine to Exclude Economist's Testimony
This is a response brief to a motion in limine to exclude the expert witness testimony of an economist. The economist was disclosed in a wrongful death case for the drowning of a three-year-old boy to testify regarding the present value of the child's loss of earning capacity. Obviously, with a child so young there is very little empirical evidence to establish the child's likely career path. The economist was asked, then, to simply address the likely present value of the child's earnings had he graduated high school and entered the workforce, and alternatively had he graduated college and entered the workforce. We then prepared to prove the child's likely success in life through other witnesses, to let the jury decide his probable earning capacity, and to let the economist explain how to calculate that in today's dollars. The Defendants moved to exclude the economist's testimony in part because he did not have a sufficient basis on his own for the assumptions of educational achievement. The Defendants also moved to exclude his testimony because the economist's original report did not include a deduction for personal maintenance expenses, which the Defendants' termed as "mandatory" under the Tennessee Supreme Court's holding in Wallace v. Couch. A careful reading of Wallace and Tennessee evidentiary law on expert witnesses demonstrates the Defendants in our case were wrong.
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Medical Bills that are Recoverable in a Medical Malpractice Case
I posted earlier about recovering medical expenses paid by TennCare in a medical malpractice case. Along the same lines, Tennessee courts allow plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases to recover for medical expenses that have been paid by:
Workers compensation benefits. (Nance by Nance v. Westside Hosp., 750 S.W.2d 740 (Tenn., 1988)).
Insurance or other payments where the payor has subrogation rights. (Richardson v. Miller, 44 S.W.3d 1 (Tenn. App. 2000)).
All of these cases look to the damages section of the Medical Malpractice Act, Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 29-26-119. Give serious consideration to the impact of 29-26-119 on any damages you want to claim in a medical malpractice case to make certain you have gathered the facts you need.
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