Page:Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Anderson.pdf/1

Rh

97-1456


 * 1) N.—The decision to grant or deny a new trial under Ark. R. Civ. P. 59(a)(8) is within the discretion of the trial court and is not reversed absent a manifest abuse of discretion, that is, discretion exercised thoughtlessly and without due consideration.
 * 2) E.—A trial court's ruling on the admission or exclusion of evidence will not be reversed absent abuse of discretion.
 * 3) D.—The collateral-source rule applies unless the evidence of the benefits from the collateral source is relevant for a purpose other than the mitigation of damages.
 * 4) D.—Under the collateral-source rule, a trial court must exclude evidence of payments received by an injured party from sources collateral to the wrongdoer, such as private insurance or government benefits; recoveries from collateral sources do not redound to the benefit of a tortfeasor, even though double recovery for the same damage by the injured party may result.
 * 5) D.—The rationale of the collateral-source rule is that a claimant should benefit from a collateral-source recovery rather than the tortfeasor because the claimant has usually paid an insurance premium or lost sick leave, whereas the tortfeasor would receive a total windfall.
 * 6) D.—The policy supporting the collateral-source rule and Arkansas case law favor including discounted and gratuitous medical services within the shelter of the collateral-source rule; where there was no evidence that appellant had anything to do with procuring the discount of appellee's medical-services bill, the rationale of the rule favored appellee.