Robert Crotty, et al. v. Mark Flora, M.D.

In this interlocutory appeal, the defendant physician in a health care liability action asks us
to review two pretrial orders. In the first, the trial court excludes evidence that a nonparty
physician was the cause-in-fact of the claimant’s injuries because the defendant never
amended his answer to include that allegation, as required under Rule 8.03 of the Tennessee
Rules of Civil Procedure as applied in George v. Alexander, 931 S.W.2d 517 (Tenn. 1996).
Because he does not allege that the nonparty physician was negligent, the defendant asks
us to modify our holding in George and reverse the trial court’s order. We respectfully
decline to do so. In the second pretrial order on appeal, the trial court considered Tennessee
Code Annotated section 29-26-119, a provision that partially abrogates the common law
collateral source rule in health care liability actions. It held that section 29-26-119 does
not abrogate the collateral source rule under the facts of this case. We agree with the trial
court that the collateral source rule remains in effect in this case. We affirm both of the
trial court’s pretrial rulings.