{
  "id": 6650507,
  "name": "OWEN DRILLING COMPANY and Home Insurance Company v. Joe Walters ALLISON",
  "name_abbreviation": "Owen Drilling Co. v. Allison",
  "decision_date": "1990-12-26",
  "docket_number": "CA 90-148",
  "first_page": "60",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:06:58.749715+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Corbin, C.J., and Cooper, J., agree."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "OWEN DRILLING COMPANY and Home Insurance Company v. Joe Walters ALLISON"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "John E. Jennings, Judge.\nThe issue to be decided is whether an employee is entitled to recover the full amount of medical expenses incurred as a result of a compensable injury, without offset for amounts previously paid by his own private medical insurance. The Commission held that the employer, or its insurance carrier, was not entitled to an offset. We agree and affirm.\nThe claimant, Joe Allison, was injured while working for Owen Drilling Company. Owen Drilling controverted the claim, the Commission held the claim compensable, and we subsequently affirmed the Commission\u2019s decision. During the two years that compensability was at issue, Allison incurred approximately $48,000 in medical expenses. The claimant\u2019s private medical insurance carriers, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Physician\u2019s Mutual, paid approximately $42,000 of these expenses and the employer\u2019s carrier, Home Insurance Company ultimately paid the balance. Allison then brought these proceedings to recover the amount paid by his own medical insurance carriers.\nThe Commission relied primarily on Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Ratcliff, 537 S.W.2d 355 (Tex. Civ. App. 1976). There the court said:\nAppellant\u2019s argument that Plaintiff\u2019s claim for medical expenses was defeated because they were paid by International Insurance Co., a third party, is without merit. The rule is well established in workmen\u2019s compensation cases that where the claimant\u2019s medical expenses were paid by a third party, the claimant is not deprived of his right to recover the value of such services by the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier.\nThe above rule announced and applied in Cooper and Kirchoff is closely akin to the \u201ccollateral source\u201d rule applied in cases other than workmen\u2019s compensation. . . .\n537 S.W.2d at 358 (citations omitted).\nAppellant\u2019s contention that the application of the collateral source rule is restricted to tort cases cannot be sustained. The rule has application in contract actions and, in the law of workers\u2019 compensation, has been thus expressed:\nAs to private pensions or health and accident insurance, whether provided by the employer, union, or the individual\u2019s own purchase, there is ordinarily no occasion for reduction of compensation benefits.\n4 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen\u2019s Compensation \u00a7 97.51(a) (1990).\nWe have twice quoted this general rule with approval. See Varnell v. Union Carbide, 29 Ark. App. 185, 779 S.W.2d 542 (1989); Emerson Electric v. Cargile, 5 Ark. App. 123, 633 S.W.2d 389 (1982). In the case at bar the Commission noted that Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 ll-9-508(a) (1987) requires the employer to \u201cpromptly\u201d provide medical services. The Commission stated:\nWe are unable to agree that this payment will unjustly enrich the Claimant, since a holding to the contrary would discourage prompt payment by employers who hope that a private carrier will relieve them of their obligation while the claim is being controverted.\nFurthermore, as Professor Larson notes, the result of our holding need not be a windfall to the claimant.\nAlthough avoidance of duplication cannot ordinarily be achieved under American statutes in these cases by, so to speak, trimming at the compensation end, it is frequently achieved by express language trimming at the private-plan end, that is, by reducing the private benefits by the amount of any compensation payments.\nLarson, supra, \u00a7 97.51(c).\nWe also agree with the Commission that McGehee Hatchery Co. v. Gunter, 234 Ark. 113, 350 S.W.2d 608 (1961), is distinguishable. There the supreme court held that a claimant, whose medical expenses had been paid in full through a workers\u2019 compensation proceeding in another state, was not entitled to receive a duplicate cash award on grounds of public policy. One primary distinction between McGehee and the case at bar is that the policy considerations underlying the collateral source rule were absent in McGehee. See D. Dobbs, Handbook on the Law of Remedies \u00a7 3.6 at 186 (1973).\nWe conclude that the Commission\u2019s holding that the employer is not entitled to an offset for medical expenses paid by the claimant\u2019s private insurance carrier is correct.\nAffirmed.\nCorbin, C.J., and Cooper, J., agree.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "John E. Jennings, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Shackleford, Shackleford & Phillips, P.A., for appellants.",
      "Spencer, Spencer, Depper & Guthrie, by.Robert L. Depper, Jr., for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "OWEN DRILLING COMPANY and Home Insurance Company v. Joe Walters ALLISON\nCA 90-148\n800 S.W.2d 728\nCourt of Appeals of Arkansas Division II\nOpinion delivered December 26, 1990\nShackleford, Shackleford & Phillips, P.A., for appellants.\nSpencer, Spencer, Depper & Guthrie, by.Robert L. Depper, Jr., for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0060-01",
  "first_page_order": 82,
  "last_page_order": 85
}