OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Brief on the SeNOff Issue (ECF
I. Background
Plaintiffs filed this action claiming that Defendant was liable to them for approximately $203,000 that was stolen from them by an employee, Shannon Nickison, who was provided to them by Defendant, a temporary employee placement service. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment and this Court denied that motion with regard to Plaintiffs’ claim that Defendant breached an oral contract that required it to conduct a background check on Nickison. That claim was tried to a jury on January 3, 2011 through January 5, 2011. Plaintiffs argued that Defendant’s breach of the oral contract proximately caused Plaintiffs a $203,000 loss. The jury found in favor of Plaintiffs and determined that Plаintiffs proved that Defendant’s breached an oral contract to conduct a background check on Nickison and that the breach proximately caused Plaintiffs to incur damages in the amount of $65,533.02.
Prior to the start of the trial, Plaintiffs requested that the Court prohibit the introduction of any evidence rеlated to payments Plaintiffs received from other sources to compensate them for the loss of the money Nickison stole. There was then and is now no dispute as to the amount Plaintiffs received in settlement from the financial institution that accepted the fraudulent checks from Nickison and frоm Plaintiffs’ insurance company. 1 Plaintiffs also received a judgment against Nickison and her husband for the entire $203,000 loss. Niekison’s husband appealed the judgment as it related to him and the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment against him. He has paid approximately $16,000 of the judgment. Defendant argued that thе collateral source payment evidence should be presented to the jury. Over that objection, this Court granted Plaintiffs’ request and prohibited evidence of any other payments made to Plaintiffs related to the Nickison theft. The Court indicated that if the jury returned a verdict in favor of Plaintiffs it would determine the amount of setoff post-trial.
The parties now disagree as to whether the jury award to Plaintiffs should be offset by the amount of the third party payments. It is undisputed that the amount Plaintiffs have actually received from third parties is greater than the amount the jury awarded to Plaintiffs. Thus, if the Court permits a setoff, evеn of only the amount Plaintiffs have actually received and not the amount Plaintiffs have the potential to receive from the wage garnishment of Nickison’s husband, Defendant will owe nothing to Plaintiffs. The Court permitted Plaintiffs to file a brief on the issue and for Defendant to file a response to that brief.
II. Applicable Law
The parties agree that the basis for granting a defendant a setoff in the amount of damages it owes is the notion that a plaintiff should not receive more than one recovery for the same damages.
See Celmer v. Rodgers,
Aside from the law relatеd to set-off, Defendant also argues that the setoff issue “requires an analysis of the collateral source rule ... under which a plaintiffs recovery from sources other than the wrongdoer are deemed irrelevant on the issue of damages.” (ECF No. 43 at 2.) Defendant, however, is mistaken with regard to this issue. The collateral source doctrine, unlike the law related to setoff, actually allows more than one recovery for the same loss.
See State ex rel. Stacy v. Batavia Local Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ.,
III. Discussion
Plaintiffs argue that the jury award should not be offset by amounts Plaintiffs have received from third parties because Defendant cannot prove that there is a potential for Plaintiffs to receive a double recovery for the same damages. Plaintiffs’ argument is not well taken.
Ohio courts generally find it inappropriate to allow a setoff in situations where evidence of a plaintiff’s third party payments was admitted into evidence for the jury’s consideration.
See e.g., Jordan v. Westfield Insurance Co.,
In Vosgerichian, the jury heard evidence related to the fault of three defendants. Before the end of the trial, however, two of the defendants were released, one on directed verdict and one because of settlement. The jury was specifically instructed to determine damages solely caused by the remaining defendant and the jury instructions were carefully crafted to prevent jury confusion and avoid the problem of double compensation for the same loss. Unlike the situation in Vosgerichian, in the case sub judice the jury had no information that there were other parties that could have been held responsible for any loss related to Nickison’s theft. Plaintiffs put forth evidence that it was Defendant’s breach of the parties’ contract that caused the entire $203,000 loss and asked the jury to award them $203,000 from Defendant.
In
Goodrich,
the plaintiff sued several оf its excess insurance carriers for breach of contract and bad faith. The claims focused on whether the insurers were contractually obligated to indemnify the plaintiff, Goodrich, for claims by the federal government relating to soil groundwater contamination caused by Goodrich’s plant in Calvеrt City, Kentucky from 1963 to 1983. Goodrich settled with several of the excess carriers and the case proceeded to trial against the remaining insurers. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s refusal to allow a setoff because the trial “record fails to even suggest that any of Goodrich’s negotiated settlements with its other insurers was intended to merely compensate Goodrich for” the same damages that Goodrich recovered from the jury award.
Plaintiffs argue that this case is analogous to Goodrich because in both cases the jury did not indicate what specific damages were included in its damage award, there was no evidence that the jury awards were intended to compensate Goodrich or Plaintiffs for the same damages recovered against the third parties who settled, and there is always the possibility that the amounts of the third party settlements were not confined to compensating Goodrich or Plaintiffs for their property damage because defendants settle for many reasons in addition to compensating a plaintiff for its injury.
Plaintiffs, however, fail to recognize that in
Goodrich,
unlike in the instant action, the third parties “paid for a release
The final case upon which Plaintiffs rely is Quantum Capital Ventures, LLC v. Evans, a case involving three individuals who formed a limited liability corporation and deposited their initial contributions in a bank. Evans withdrеw from the corporation and unilaterally withdrew from the bank more than his interest in the corporation. The bank settled with the plaintiff, QVC, for $10,000. QVC went to trial against Evans and was awarded $9,519.23. After the trial, Evans asked for the $10,000 to be offset and the trial court denied that request. The appellate court affirmed the triаl court indicating that the claims the plaintiff filed against Evans were separate and distinct from those filed against the bank:
In the Complaint it was alleged that ... Oak Hills Bank was negligent in permitting the withdrawal of funds and, as a result thereof, it impaired the ability of [QVC] to obtain investment and resulted in damage to reputation of [QVC]. The allegations directed towards [appellant] concern a breach of contract and the inappropriate withdrawal of funds by [appellant] in violation of the Operating Agreement.
Evans,
Plaintiffs argue that they, like the plaintiff in Evans, possessed claims against the settling pаrties that were separate and distinct from those they filed against Defendant. What Plaintiffs fail to recognize is that in Evans there was the potential for separate damages from each claim, which is simply not the case in the instant action. While the Court agrees that, like in Evans, Plaintiffs here could have filed different claims against the settling parties, unlike in Evans, Plaintiffs only damages were the amount of the theft. In Evans there was the loss of the funds withdrawn from the bank but there were also the additional alleged damages against the settling parties regarding the impaired ability to obtain investment and damages to reputation.
The Court finds that in this case, like in the usual case, a failure to reduce the jury award would result in Plaintiffs’ receipt of compensation in excess of the value the jury assigned to their loss.
See Kirby,
Here, the jury did not receive evidence regarding the collateral source payment by State Farm to the Roberts-es, so it did not consider the State Farm payment in determining the amount of damages owed to Roberts. The jury determined that Roberts was injured and that her injuries could be made whole by compensating her in the amount of $ 92,000. Given that Roberts had already received compensation in the amount of $ 100,000 from State Farm, the jury’s award establishes that she has already been fully compensated. To fail to reduce Roberts’s verdict against National Union by the amount of the settlement with State Farm would result in Roberts’s receiving compensation in an amount double the value the jury placed upon her loss-ie., a windfall.
Roberts,
IV. Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, the Court concludes that Defendant has the right to setoff the amounts Plaintiffs have received from third parties for their loss related to Nickison’s theft. The Court ORDERS a setoff from the jury award to Plaintiffs in the amounts Plaintiffs received from the bank, the insurance company, and Nickison’s husband. Based on the amounts provided to this Court under seal, the Court ENTERS JUDGMENT in favor of Plaintiff and awards zero dollars in damages. This is a final and appealable Order.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Notes
. The Court will not specify the amounts Plaintiffs received in settlement because the settlements are subject to confidentiality provisions which prohibit the dissemination of that information.