Cuff v Grossmont Union High School District, et al.
The two sons of plaintiff Tina Cuff met with Ms. Susan Saunders, their school counselor at Grossmont Union High, and told Ms. Saunders that they were being abused by their mother. Ms. Saunders filed a Suspected Child Abuse Report with the San Diego County Child Welfare Services. She also gave a copy of the report to Ms. Cuff’s ex-husband and suggested that he file with the police department. Instead, Mr. Cuff went to Court seeking custody of his sons. Ms. Cuff then filed Suit against Ms. Saunders and the Grossmont Union High School District for improper disclosure of the report to Mr. Cuff.
Ultimately, the Court of Appeal ruled that while the Penal Code typically provides immunity for individuals reporting child abuse, that immunity does not protect disclosure of such a confidential report to an unauthorized party. Thus, Ms. Saunders and the District could be held liable for the improper disclosure. The takeaway here is that while mandated reporters should file a Suspected Child Abuse Report whenever there is knowledge or reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect, they must also be careful to not disclose the Report to anyone other than the proper authorities.
Corenbaum v Lampkin
Corenbaum and Carter were passengers in a taxi cab struck by defendant Lampkin. Corenbaum and Carter sued Lampkin and the jury awarded them $1.8M and $1.4M, respectively, based on evidence of the full amounts billed for past medical care. The trial court excluded evidence of the lesser amounts accepted by the medical providers as full payment.
The appellate court reversed the trial court’s ruling, explaining that only the amount accepted as full payment is recoverable, and therefore those are the only values that are relevant and admissible.
The appellate court then applied this logic to future medical expenses as well, noting that allowing the use of full billed amounts to evaluate future medical expenses, while disallowing full billed amounts to evaluate past medical expenses, would only serve to confuse the jury and possibly violate the collateral source rule by suggesting the existence of collateral source payments. The benefit of this ruling is clear: full billed amounts are not admissible in court for purposes of evaluating past or future medical expenses. Its effect on non-economic damages remains to be seen.
