Clanton v. U.S.

Dist. Ct. erred in entering $30 million judgment in favor of plaintiff in instant Federal Tort Claims Act action against defendant-United States, alleging that nurse practitioner failed to properly educate plaintiff with respect to his hypertension, which led to serious Stage V kidney disease, where Dist. Ct. determined that plaintiff had not contributed at all to his own injuries. Plaintiff's failure to subjectively understand necessity to keep appointments and to take his prescribed medicine for long periods of time did not end comparative negligence inquiry. Moreover, remand was required, since Dist. Ct. should have also determined how reasonable person in same position as plaintiff would have acted and compare plaintiff’s conduct to that objective standard of care. Also, Dist. Ct. properly precluded government from electing to pay portion of damages award in installments, since special remedies statute allowing government to do so was repealed and since said repeal applied retroactively. Too, defendant was not entitled to offset from damage award payments made by Medicare B for some of plaintiff’s medical expenses, since, under Illinois law, Medicare payments came from collateral source that were not intended to indemnify government.