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Hospitals, insurers and trial lawyers clash over SB 13‑29 collateral‑source fix
Summary
Ruth Cardiello, senior vice president and chief risk officer at Stamford Health, asked the Judiciary Committee to pass Senate Bill 13‑29, which would allow courts to reduce a defendant’s liability by the amount a plaintiff actually paid when a third‑party subrogation claim was later settled for less than the collateral‑source payment.
Ruth Cardiello, senior vice president and chief risk officer at Stamford Health, urged the Judiciary Committee to support Senate Bill 13‑29, saying the change would correct a technical problem in Conn. Gen. Stat. §52‑225a and prevent defendants from overpaying when collateral‑source subrogation claims are later settled for less than the amount actually paid to a plaintiff.
Supporters — including the Connecticut Hospital Association, the Connecticut Defense Lawyers Association and corporate defendants such as Uber — said SB 13‑29 restores fairness by making “economic damages” reflect what the plaintiff actually paid or remains obligated to pay after subrogation or negotiated settlements. Carl Schissel, senior director of regulatory advocacy at the Connecticut Hospital Association, told the committee that enactment would make the statute’s operation consistent with legislative intent and reduce pressure that he said has pushed up settlement values.
Opponents, including veteran plaintiffs’ lawyers who worked on the Marciano case, said the bill would undo a considered compromise dating to the 1986 tort‑reform package and the Connecticut Supreme Court’s unanimous interpretation in Marciano v. United Techs. Mike D’Amico, a trial lawyer who said he was trial counsel in Marciano, argued that the statute’s limited exception for traditional insurance plans was deliberate and that attempting to calculate the cost of complex government or self‑insured plans is impractical and burdensome.
The committee heard examples from hospital and defense counsel who said Marciano has been used in settlement bargaining to seek awards that include billed but adjusted amounts; plaintiffs’ advocates and trial lawyers countered that allowing defendants to benefit from a discount negotiated by a plaintiff’s insurer or creditor would create a windfall for wrongdoers and conflict with the principle of making an injured person whole.
No formal vote was taken. Committee members repeatedly framed the dispute as a policy call: whether courts should treat the full billed amount, or the post‑subrogation/net amount actually paid or owed by the plaintiff, as the correct measure of economic damages.
Supporters asked the committee to report the bill favorably for legislative clarification; opponents urged caution given the statute’s history and the Supreme Court’s unanimous Marciano decision.
