{"id":13093,"date":"2011-03-28T15:35:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T20:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13093"},"modified":"2011-03-28T15:36:31","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T20:36:31","slug":"if-the-law-says-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/03\/if-the-law-says-that\/","title":{"rendered":"If the Law Says That . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second post in an occasional series\u00a0entitled “Law Gone Wrong.”\u00a0 The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).\u00a0 Today’s contribution is from Professor Jack Kircher.<\/em><\/p>\n

Alright, the law of subrogation is fairly simple.\u00a0 If one who is secondarily liable pay a debt that should have been paid by the primarily liable person, the one who pays the debt steps into the shoes of the creditor to pursue the one primarily liable.\u00a0 Subrogation also applies to an indemnity insurance situation. \u00a0An insurer paying on its policy when its insured sustains a loss caused by a tortfeasor may pursue the tortfeasor for the amount the insurer paid.\u00a0 It thus becomes the alter ego of its insured, the tort victim, as to the tortfeasor.\u00a0 In this context both insurance and tort law concern themselves with indemnity.<\/p>\n

A wrinkle has been added to the basic context in Wisconsin and elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0The Wisconsin Supreme Court determined that an insurer\u2019s subrogation rights remain inchoate until its insured is \u201cmade whole\u201d by the tortfeasor for the losses sustained. [Garrity v. Rural Mut. Ins. Co., 77 Wis.2d 537, 253 N.W.2d 512 (1977)<\/a>; Rimes v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. 106 Wis.2d 263, 316 N.W.2d 348 (1982).]\u00a0 No real problem with that, as the insurer is a commercial risk-taker while its insured is not and a pecking order here should favor the latter over the former.<\/p>\n

But ah, here comes the rub!\u00a0 In Koffman v. Leichtfuss, [246 Wis.2d 31, 630 N.W.2d 201 (2001)] the court was confronted with a case in which the plaintiff received medical treatment for injuries sustained in an accident.\u00a0 The total amount billed by health care providers was $187,931.78.\u00a0 However, through certain contractual relationships with the plaintiff’s health care providers, the plaintiff\u2019s insurers received the benefit of reduced \u201ccontracted rates\u201d and were able to satisfy the amounts billed by the providers with total payments of $62,324.\u00a0 The plaintiff personally paid $1,869.43 in deductibles, co-payments, and out-of-pocket expenses.\u00a0 The court, nevertheless, held that the plaintiff was entitled to seek recovery of the reasonable value of medical services, the amount billed, without limitation to amounts paid.\u00a0 That ruling would make sense if the medical services had been provided gratuitously.\u00a0 That would be no more than an application of the collateral source rule.\u00a0 But in Koffman<\/em>, the ruling impacts not only upon the tortfeasor\u2019s liability but, because of the \u201cmade whole\u201d rule, the insurer\u2019s ability to advance its subrogation rights.<\/p>\n

Even though the two dissenters did not say so in Koffman<\/em> I will. \u00a0If the law says that, the law is an ass! [Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Oliver Twist 399 (Oxford Univ. Press 1981 (1838)]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second post in an occasional series\u00a0entitled “Law Gone Wrong.”\u00a0 The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).\u00a0 Today’s contribution is from Professor Jack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,60,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-regulation","category-health-care","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}