Once again this Court is asked to address the applicability of the collateral source rule to medical payments made by the insurer of a railroad employer on to a railroad employee injured while on the job. The Court has previously dealt with this identical issue in two cases, Poole v. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D.Md. 1985) and Walton v. National Railroad Passenger Corp. t/a Amtrak, 673 F. Supp. 744 (D.Md. 1986), both of which involved the same collective bargaining agreement and insurance policy present here, Travelers Group Policy No. GA-23000 ("GA-23000"). In those cases, the Court was asked to decide whether medical payments made by the railroads' insurer to the injured employee were governed by the collateral source rule.
The question whether plaintiff may introduce at trial evidence of medical expenses which had been paid under Group Policy No. GA-23000 has been raised repeatedly in this District and there is a split of opinion on the question. See Poole v. Baltimore and Ohio R.R. Co., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D.Md. 1985), and Walton v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 673 F. Supp. 744 (D.Md. 1986), for decisions which found that Group Policy No. GA-23000 was a collateral source and therefore denied the motion in limine. See Mead v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 676 F. Supp. 92 (D.Md. 1987), and Francis v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 661 F. Supp. 244 (D.Md. 1987), for decisions where the motion in limine was granted and evidence of medical bills was excluded.
Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this chapter, shall to that extent be void: Provided, That in any action brought against any such common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this chapter, such common carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled thereto on account of the injury or death for which said action was brought. In support of his argument, plaintiff relied on Poole v. Baltimore Ohio R.R. Co., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D.Md. 1985), wherein a motion in limine identical to the one at issue here was denied. That decision was grounded on the collateral source rule, which prevents a tortfeasor from mitigating damages by setting off payments received by the injured party from an independent source.
45 U.S.C. ยง 55. Plaintiff claims that an order excluding evidence of medical expenses paid by defendant directly or through its insurance would effectively exempt defendant from liability, in contravention of section 55 of the Act. In so arguing, plaintiff relies principally on the decision in Poole v. Baltimore Ohio R.R., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D.Md. 1985), in which a district court denied a motion in limine identical to the one at issue here. In Poole, Judge Northrop did not announce the blanket prohibition advanced by plaintiff, but rather applied the traditional collateral source rule.
The rationale behind this rule is that there is no double recovery as long as the plaintiff has contributed to the original source of the payments received. This Court held in Poole v. The Baltimore And Ohio Railroad Co., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D.Md. 1985) that benefits under the Traveler's GA-23000 policy are collateral source benefits, subject to recovery by the plaintiff, and hence admissable. The Court found the policy to be a fringe benefit, given in consideration for the employees' services.
788 P.2d 901, 908-909 (Mont. 1990). See also Kendig, supra, 671 F.Supp at 1068-1069 (overruling Poole v. Baltimore Ohio R. Co., 657 F. Supp. 1 (D. Md. 1985)). The $350,000 verdict expressly included an award of $23,594.51 for medical expenses. It is undisputed that these medical expenses (excepting $138.05) were paid by GA-23000.