Daily Blast November 4, 2011

Here is a new Hanif case you might find interesting. On Friday, November 4, 2011, the Fifth District Court of Appeal (Fresno) decided Sanchez v. Strickland (Nov. 4, 2011, F060582) ___ Cal.App.4th ____, which discussed and applied two aspects of the California Supreme Court’s recent decision in Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc. (2011) 52 Cal.4th 541. Interestingly, only one of the holdings is published.

In the unpublished portion of the opinion, the court unequivocally extended Howell to Medicare. (Slip opn., p. 2.) Howell held that a plaintiff may not recover as past medical expenses the difference between (1) the medical providers’ full billings for the medical care and services supplied to the plaintiff and (2) the amounts the medical providers have agreed to accept from the plaintiff’s private insurer as full payment. (Ibid.) The court in Sanchez concluded that Howell’s holding concerning private insurance applies with equal force to Medicare. (Ibid.) While the two-paragraph discussion of this issue is unpublished, this holding is mentioned in the introduction section of the opinion, which is published.

In the published portion of the opinion, the court held that “[where] a medical provider has (1) rendered medical services to a plaintiff, (2) issued a bill for those services, and (3) subsequently written off a portion of the bill gratuitously, the amount written off constitutes a benefit that may be recovered by the plaintiff under the collateral source rule.” (Slip opn., p. 13.) As a result, the court held that the limitation on recovery set forth in Howell does not extend to amounts gratuitously written off by a medical provider. (Id. at p. 3.)

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