Appellant, appellee’s uninsured motorist carrier, seeks review of a final judgment entered in appellee’s favor following a jury trial and the subsequent denial of appellant’s motions seeking a new trial or remit-titur. Appellant contends that the trial court erred when (1) notwithstanding a timely objection, it permitted appellee to introduce into evidence (and to request from the jury) the gross amount of her medical bills, rather than the lesser amount paid by appellee’s private health insurer in full settlement of the medical bills; and (2) it denied appellant’s post-trial motion seeking a new trial or remitti-tur as to the award of future medical expenses because, given the jury’s finding that appellee did not sustain a permanent injury, the award of such future expenses was excessive. We conclude that the trial court correctly (1) applied the collateral source rule when it overruled appellant’s objection and permitted appellee to introduce into evidence (and to request from the jury) the gross amount of her medical bills; and (2) denied appellant’s motion seeking a new trial or remittitur as to the award of future medical expenses because the jury’s verdict was inconsistent, and appellant failed to preserve the issue for review by raising it before the jury was discharged. Accordingly, we affirm.
Appellant’s first contention on appeal is that the trial court abused its discretion when, notwithstanding a timely objection, it permitted appellee to introduce into evidence (and to request from the jury) the gross amount of her medical bills, rather than the lesser amount paid by appellee’s private health insurer in full settlement of the medical bills, because it misled the jury as to the true amount of appellee’s damages. In support of this position, appellant cites a number of cases, all of which appellant contends hold that it is reversible error to permit evidence of the gross amount of medical bills, rather than the amount actually paid in full settlement of those bills. However, as appellee correctly points out, all of those cases involved payments made on the injured plaintiffs behalf by Medicare, rather than by a private insurance provider. We conclude that, as a result, all of those cases are distinguishable from this case because, *1086 here, the payments were made by appel-lee’s private health insurer.
As our supreme court noted in
Gormley v. GTE Products Corporation,
In
Goble v. Frohman,
Appellant relies principally on
Thyssenkrupp Elevator Corporation v. Lasky,
In
Stanley,
our supreme court held that evidence of governmental or charitable benefits available to all citizens should not be precluded by the evidentiary portion of the collateral source rule.
We believe that the common-law collateral source rule should be limited to those benefits earned in some way by the plaintiff. Governmental or charitable benefits available to all citizens, regardless of wealth or status, should be admissible for the jury to consider in determining the reasonable cost of necessary future care.... We find persuasive the following reasoning advanced by the Supreme Court of Illinois in refusing to allow a plaintiff a windfall recovery for the value of free medical services received in a charitable hospital:
[T]he policy behind the collateral-source rule simply is not applicable if the plaintiff has incurred no expense, obligation, or liability in obtaining the services for which he seeks compensation. This is further made apparent upon comparison ... with a situation in which the collateral-source rule is frequently applied, that of the defendant who seeks a reduction in damages because the plaintiff has received insurance benefits. “It is a well-settled rule of damages that the amount recoverable for tortious personal injuries is not decreased by the fact that the injured party has been wholly or partly indemnified for the loss by proceeds from accident insurance where the tortfeasor did not contribute to the payment of the premiums of such insurance. This rule is usually justified on the basis that the wrongdoer should not benefit from the expenditures made by the injured party in procuring the insurance coverage.”
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Id.
at 515-16 (quoting from
Peterson v. Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet Co.,
Based on the foregoing, it is relatively clear that our supreme court intended to limit abrogation of the evidentiary portion of the collateral source rule to cases where the benefits received to reduce the cost of medical care were not earned (or paid for) in some way by the plaintiff. Here, there is no dispute that appellee paid the premiums for her health insurance. Accordingly, pursuant to the evidentiary portion of the collateral source rule as it currently exists in Florida, we hold that the trial court correctly ruled that appellee was entitled to introduce into evidence (and to request from the jury) the gross amount of her medical bills, rather than the lesser amount paid by appellee’s private health insurer in full settlement of the medical bills. In fact, the only Florida appellate decision we have been able to find that is directly on point reaches that result.
Goble v. Frohman,
Appellant’s second contention is that the trial court erroneously denied its post-trial motion seeking a new trial or remittitur as to the award of future medical expenses because, given the jury’s finding that appellee did not sustain a permanent injury, the award of such future expenses was excessive. Here, the jury awarded appellee the precise amount she had requested based on her argument that she had sustained a permanent injury that would require treatment for the rest of her life. We conclude that, as a result, the amount of the jury’s award of future medical expenses notwithstanding its find
*1088
ing that appellee had not sustained a permanent injury created a true inconsistent verdict. “To preserve the issue of an inconsistent verdict, the party claiming inconsistency must raise the issue before the jury is discharged.”
Fla. Dep’t of Transp. v. Stewart,
For the reasons set out above, we affirm the final judgment entered in favor of ap-pellee.
AFFIRMED.