Ashley Larson and Karlee Janigian obtained partial summary judgment on behalf of a retail client limiting the damages a plaintiff may pursue at trial in a premises liability case. The ruling narrowed the plaintiff’s trial damages to noneconomic damages and any recoverable portion of lost wages not fully covered by workers’ compensation, limiting the exposure faced by the retailer.
The plaintiff was injured while working for his employer on the defendant’s premises. Plaintiff received workers’ compensation benefits from his employer and later sued the premises owner under Colorado’s Premises Liability Act. Because it had paid benefits, the employer held statutory subrogation rights against the premises owner and, after intervening in the litigation, settled those rights with the retailer.
The retailer filed a motion for partial summary judgment seeking to limit plaintiff’s recoverable damages at trial. The issue before the Court was whether the plaintiff was precluded from seeking damages when the workers’ compensation settlement waived all claims for past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages, disfigurement, and permanent impairment damage to the extent the benefits are fully covered by the workers’ compensation statute.
The court held that the plaintiff could not recover for any category of damages that his workers’ compensation settlement had fully resolved. In the workers’ compensation settlement agreement, the worker waived his rights to past and future medical benefits, to permanent impairment, and to disfigurement compensation.
Because those categories were extinguished, the court concluded the plaintiff could not seek to recover them again against the retailer. Notably, it rejected the argument that “permanent impairment” means something different under the common law than under the comp statute, treating the waiver as coextensive with the tort claim. It also distinguished Scholle, where only past medical expenses and a portion of lost wages had been covered. The trial court found the plaintiff was entitled to the remaining one-third that had not been waived and remained potentially recoverable, subject to a post-trial setoff. Plaintiff’s alleged economic and impairment damages claims were precluded.
As a result, the plaintiff was barred from presenting evidence of past and future medical expenses, disfigurement, and permanent impairment damages at trial, leaving only his noneconomic damages and a potential claim for the one-third of lost wages not covered by workers’ compensation, subject to a post-trial setoff.
