WELKER v. CARNEVALE et al
Filing
100
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER granting 71 Motion in Limine; granting 73 Motion in Limine; granting 75 Motion in Limine, and as more fully stated in said Memorandum Opinion and Order. Signed by Judge Kim R. Gibson on 1/13/2017. (dlg)
IN THE UNITED ST ATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
NICOLE WELKER and JUSTIN
BRINKLEY, individually, and CHARLES
B. HADAD, ESQUIRE, as Guardian
Ad Litem on behalf of JDWBII, a minor,
)
)
)
)
)
Plaintiffs,
)
v.
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:14-CV-149
)
JUDGE KIM R. GIBSON
)
)
THOMAS A. CARNEVALE, M.D.
and CLEARFIELD HOSPITAL,
)
)
)
Defendants.
)
MEMORANDUM OPINION
I.
Introduction
Pending before the Court are Plaintiffs' Motion in Limine to Preclude Justin
Brinkley's Prior Legal History (ECF No. 71), Motion in Limine to Preclude Litigation
Analytics from Presenting JDWBII's Future Life Care Costs Discounted to Present Value
(ECF No. 73), and Motion in Limine to Preclude Existence/Availability of Health Insurance
and Opinions/Calculations Based on the Affordable Care Act (ECF No. 75).
For the
reasons that follow, Plaintiffs' Motion regarding Justin Brinkley's legal history is
GRANTED, Plaintiffs' motion regarding discounting future life care costs to present
value is GRANTED, and Plaintiffs' motion regarding the Affordable Care Act is
GRANTED.
II.
Background
This is a diversity action alleging medical malpractice and negligence. Nicole
Welker presented to Clearfield Hospital on July 19, 2012, in active labor. She was treated
by Dr. Thomas Carnevale, the attending obstetrician. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants Dr.
Carnevale and Clearfield Hospital failed to provide appropriate medical care, including
that they improperly administered the drug Pitocin to Welker while she was in labor,
resulting in serious and permanent neurological disabilities to her son, JDWBII.
Defendants deny that their actions were negligent or constituted malpractice. Trial is
scheduled to begin on January 17, 2017. Plaintiffs have filed three motions in Limine,
which the Court will discuss in tum.
III.
Discussion
a. Justin Brinkley's Prior Legal History
Plaintiffs first request the Court exclude any reference to Plaintiff Justin Brinkley's
prior legal history relating to a "legal matter" around the time of his son's birth. (ECF
Nos. 71 & 77.) On July 16, 2012, Dr. Carnevale recommended to Nicole Welker that they
induce labor on July 18, 2012. (ECF No. 77 at 2.) Welker asked to delay the inducement of
labor until the onset of natural labor or she reached 41-42 weeks gestation, to which Dr.
Carnevale agreed. (Id.) Welker declined inducement on July 18, 2012 because Brinkley,
her boyfriend and the baby's father, had a court hearing out of town in Erie, Pennsylvania
on July 19, 2012. (Id.) The hearing was a preliminary hearing for an arrest on charges for
possessing stolen property, possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, and a
2
firearm charge. 1 (Id. at 3.) Despite postponing inducement, Welker ended up going into
labor and giving birth on July 19, 2012, while Brinkley was in Erie.
(Id. at 2)
The
testimony of Dr. Carnevale and Brinkley, as well as the reports of two defense experts
(Id. at 2-4.)
make reference to Brinkley's legal matter.
Plaintiffs request the Court
preclude any such reference at trial on the grounds that Brinkley's criminal hearing is
irrelevant to the claims in this case and would be unfairly prejudicial. Defendants did not
file a brief in opposition with respect to this motion.
Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, evidence is relevant if "(a) it has any
tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and
(b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action." FED. R. Evrn. 401. A court may,
however, exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by
the danger of unfair prejudice. FED. R. Evrn. 403. The Court agrees that Brinkley's legal
matter in Erie is not relevant to the claims in this case. Where exactly Brinkley needed to
be on July 19, 2012 could not possibly have any relevance to whether Defendants
committed malpractice, a fact Defendants evidently do not contest. In fact, Dr. Carnevale
testified in his deposition that the legal matter had nothing to do with the medical
outcome.
(ECF No. 71-4 at 3.)
The nature of the legal matter would likewise be
prejudicial against Plaintiffs. Accordingly, the Court will grant Plaintiffs' motion and
preclude any reference to Brinkley's legal history.
1
The charges ultimately resulted in probation but no conviction and were eventually expunged from
Brinkley's record. (Id. at 3.)
3
b. Future Life Care Costs Discounted to Present Value
Plaintiffs request the Court preclude one of Defendants' experts from presenting
to the jury JDWBII's future life care costs discounted to present value. (ECF Nos. 73 & 78.)
Plaintiffs argue that Pennsylvania law provides that awards for future medical expenses
in medical malpractice cases should not be discounted to present value.
Defendants
declined to file a brief in opposition with respect to this motion.
Plaintiffs' reading of Pennsylvania law appears to be correct.
See 40 P.S. ยง
1303.509(b) (outlining future damages in medical malpractice cases); see also Nicholson-
Upsey ex rel. Nicholson v. Tuoey, No. 4525 NOV.TERM 2009, 2013 WL 8596353, at *21 (Pa.
Corn. PL May 7, 2013) (where the jury awarded damages for future medical expenses as a
total sum and the court subsequently discounted the award to present value for the
purpose of determining attorney's fees only). Accordingly, the Court will grant Plaintiffs'
motion and preclude Defendants' expert from presenting JDWBII' s life care costs to the
jury discounted to present value.
c. Opinions and Calculations Based Upon the Affordable Care Act
Lastly, Plaintiffs ask the Court to preclude Defendants and their experts. from
presenting opinions and calculations based upon the Affordable Care Act ("ACA") with
respect to damages for future life care costs. (ECF Nos. 75 & 79.) Plaintiffs, relying on
several decisions from Federal District Courts and the Pennsylvania Superior Court,
argue that coverage under the ACA is barred by the collateral source rule, as recognized
under Pennsylvania law. Defendants argue in opposition that the collateral source rule is
inapplicable to the ACA, that the decisions cited by Plaintiffs do not involve in depth
4
reasoning and are not binding on this Court, and Pennsylvania Supreme Court precedent
indicates the Commonwealth's highest court would hold that coverage under the ACA is
not barred by the collateral source rule. (ECF No. 84.)
"[T]he collateral source rule was intended to avoid precluding a claimant from
obtaining redress for his or her injury merely because coverage for the injury was
provided by some collateral source, e.g. insurance." Beachwood Flying Service, Inc. v. Al
Hamilton Contracting Corp., 476 A.2d 350, 352 (Pa. 1984). While the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court has not weighed in on the issue, several other courts have held that calculations
relating to the ACA are barred by the collateral source rule under Pennsylvania law. See
Bernheisel v. Mikaya, No. 3:13-CV-01496, 2016 WL 4211897, at *4 (M.D. Pa. Aug. 9, 2016);
Cordes v. United States, No. 2:13CV547, 2015 WL 10986360 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 20, 2015); Deeds
v. Univ. of Pennsylvania Med. Ctr., 110 A.3d 1009, 1013, reargument denied (Apr. 7, 2015),
appeal dismissed sub nom. Deeds ex rel. Renzulli v. Univ. of Pennsylvania Med. Ctr., 128
A.3d 764 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2015).
Defendants are correct that none of these cases are binding on this Court, nor is the
issue discussed in great detail in any of the opinions. Nevertheless, the decisions are still
instructive and the Court is not persuaded that they are wrongly decided. Defendants'
arguments to the contrary are ultimately not compelling. For example, Defendants argue
that the ACA is not, itself, health insurance. (ECF No. 84 at 2-3.) That is of course true in
the literal sense. Nevertheless, while the ACA is not health insurance, it would still seem
to be the case that health insurance governed by, and obtained under the ACA, is still
health insurance.
5
Defendants predict that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would hold differently
than the Superior Court and the Federal District Courts based on its prior holding in
Moorhead v. Crozer Chester Med. Ctr., 765 A2d 786 (Pa. 2001). (See ECF No. 84 at 7-8.)
However, Defendants appear to be misreading or misapplying the holding in Moorhead.
In Moorhead, it was determined that the fair and reasonable value of the medical services
received by the plaintiff was $108,668.31, but the Medicare allowance for those services
was only $12,167.40. Moorhead, 765 A2d, at 787-88. Medicare and the plaintiff's health
insurance paid the $12,167.40 to the healthcare provider and the plaintiff received the
services at no personal cost. (Id.) The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reasoned that the
collateral source rule did not serve to allow the plaintiff to recover the full $108,668.31 for
the value of the services since that amount was not paid by anyone. However, the court
went on to say "[c]learly, Appellant is entitled to recover $12,167.40, the amount which
was paid on her behalf by Medicare and Blue Cross, the collateral sources." (Id. at 791.)
Therefore, even under the reasoning in Moorhead, it does not follow that Plaintiffs'
recovery should be limited to the amount they will have to pay for "Govemmentcontrolled premiums and out-of-pocket limitations" under the ACA, as Defendants assert.
(See ECF No. 84 at 8.) Rather, the amount paid by a health insurance company (offering
Plaintiffs health insurance through the ACA) to healthcare providers would seemingly be
covered by the collateral source rule and recoverable by Plaintiffs. In sum, Defendants
arguments fail to convince this Court that Bernheisel, Cordes, and Deeds were wrongly
6
decided and will adopt their reasoning. 2 Accordingly, the Court will grant Plaintiffs'
motion.
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the Court will grant Plaintiffs' motions in Limine.
An appropriate order follows.
The Court further notes that the decisions in Bernheisel, Cordes, and Deeds were issued prior to
recent events which cast the long-term existence of the ACA into doubt. The case for excluding
calculations based on the ACA is only stronger now.
2
7
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
NICOLE WELKER and JUSTIN
BRINKLEY, individually, and CHARLES
B. HADAD, ESQUIRE, as Guardian
Ad Litem on behalf of JDWBII, a minor,
)
)
)
)
)
Plaintiffs,
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:14-CV-149
)
)
v.
JUDGE KIM R. GIBSON
)
)
THOMAS A. CARNEVALE, M.D.
and CLEARFIELD HOSPITAL,
)
)
)
Defendants.
)
ORDER
AND NOW, this 13th day of January, 2017, upon consideration of Plaintiffs'
Motion in Limine to Preclude Justin Brinkley's Prior Legal History (ECF No. 71), Motion in
Limine to Preclude Litigation Analytics from Presenting JDWBII' s Future Life Care Costs
Discounted to Present Value (ECF No. 73), and Motion in Limine to Preclude
Existence/Availability of Health Insurance and Opinions/Calculations Based on the
Affordable Care Act (ECF No. 75), and in accordance with the attached memorandum
opinion, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motions are GRANTED.
BY THE COURT:
KIM R. GIBSON
UNITED ST ATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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