California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Scalice v. Performance Cleaning Systems, 50 Cal.App.4th 221, 57 Cal.Rptr.2d 711 (Cal. App. 1996):
11 Just as we have rejected respondent's contention that the deduction should be made solely from economic damages, we reject appellant's suggestion that it be taken solely from noneconomic damages. Appellant's point, that the court deducted the workers' compensation benefits from economic damages, then made a second deduction by subtracting the employer's 30 percent share of negligence from noneconomic damages is not accurate. Performance is liable for its 70 percent share of noneconomic damages because of the jury's verdict, not because the court made a second deduction. Appellant's formula ignores the intent of Proposition 51 to alter the balance in third party actions by making the employee, like any other plaintiff, bear the risk of loss from noneconomic damages attributable to a defendant who is insolvent or immune. (DaFonte v. Up-Right, Inc., supra, 2 Cal.4th at pp. 593, 603, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 238, 828 P.2d 140.) By attempting to reach a fair allocation of the economic and noneconomic portions of the employer's payment, we bring computation of the workers' compensation offset into alignment with the computation of offsets for other amounts received by tort plaintiffs prior to the verdict.
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