Background
In October 2017, Emily Holmes stopped her vehicle in a West Point, Utah construction zone when Catherine Smith’s vehicle struck her from behind. Holmes, then thirty-six years old, had pre-existing scoliosis that had never caused her symptoms. After the accident she was diagnosed with cervical and lumbar sprain/strain injuries and received treatment through May 2018. In August 2018 she returned for additional care; Smith argued that these later complaints were attributable to Holmes’s undiagnosed scoliosis and pre-existing degenerative disc disease rather than the collision.
Before trial, Smith moved to exclude testimony from Holmes’s life care planner, Kourtney Layton. The trial court excluded Layton’s recommendation that Holmes purchase a VariDesk and ergonomic evaluation on the ground that Holmes’s employer had already provided those accommodations — effectively concluding the issue was “resolved.” The court also excluded Layton’s work-life-expectancy testimony, citing internal inconsistencies it characterized as egregious enough to render the opinion unreliable. On the evidentiary side, the court admitted Holmes’s medical records over objection, treating Dr. Sonnenberg’s testimony as a sufficient foundation even though he acknowledged he did not know who created the records, when entries were made, or the procedures by which the records were maintained. At the close of evidence, the court declined to instruct the jury on aggravation of pre-existing conditions, finding insufficient evidentiary support. The jury found Smith negligent and awarded Holmes more than $60,000 in combined economic and noneconomic damages.
Holmes appealed, raising four evidentiary challenges and one jury-instruction challenge. The court of appeals found three of the evidentiary challenges meritorious.
The Court’s Holding
The Utah Court of Appeals reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial on three independent grounds.
1. Collateral source rule (reversed). Utah’s collateral source rule “prevents a plaintiff’s recovery from being reduced by proof that the plaintiff has received or will receive compensation or indemnity for the loss from an independent collateral source.” Gardner v. Norman, 2025 UT 47, ¶ 34. The trial court excluded evidence of workplace accommodations because Holmes’s employer had provided a VariDesk at no cost to her. That reasoning was error. A tortfeasor cannot benefit from benefits supplied by third parties — even if the result is a windfall to the plaintiff. The court rejected Smith’s alternative grounds for affirmance: the alleged inconsistencies in Layton’s report went to the weight of her testimony rather than its admissibility, and any pleading deficiency concerning special damages could have been cured by amendment under rule 15 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, particularly because the damages had been disclosed and litigated through Layton’s deposition.
2. Medical records — business-records foundation (reversed). Rule 803(6) of the Utah Rules of Evidence requires that the foundation for a business record be established “by the testimony of the custodian or another qualified witness, or by a certification.” Dr. Sonnenberg acknowledged he did not know who created the records, when the individual entries were made, whether they were recorded at the time of the underlying events, or how the records were stored. His testimony that he “assume[d]” the records were kept in the ordinary course of business was not sufficient. Authenticity and admissibility under hearsay exceptions are distinct concepts: Holmes’s stipulation that the records were authentic did not waive the foundational requirements of rule 803(6), and Dr. Sonnenberg’s reliance on the records for his own opinions did not establish that he had the knowledge of record-keeping practices that the rule demands.
3. Life care planner work-life testimony (reversed). The trial court had excluded Layton’s work-life-expectancy testimony based on alleged inconsistencies — chiefly that she recommended workplace accommodations for twenty-five years while calculating Holmes’s remaining work-life expectancy at only approximately fourteen years. The court of appeals held these inconsistencies went to weight, not admissibility. Layton’s extended calculations reflected a deliberate effort to account for the possibility that the jury might accept a longer work-life figure than she had estimated. That approach did not render the opinion so unreliable as to justify exclusion under rules 702 or 403.
Jury instruction (not preserved). Holmes’s claim that the jury should have been instructed that Smith bore the burden of proof on apportionment of pre-existing conditions was not preserved. Holmes never specifically argued to the trial court that the instructions as a whole were deficient for lack of a burden-of-proof instruction, nor did she propose a modified instruction that omitted the aggravation language the court found unsupported by the evidence.
Key Takeaways
- Under Utah’s collateral source rule, a defendant receives no reduction in damages because the plaintiff’s employer — or any other third party — has already provided the same accommodation or benefit the plaintiff seeks to recover as a damage element; the rule applies even when the result is a windfall to the plaintiff.
- An expert who merely relies on medical records cannot serve as the “qualified witness” required by Utah R. Evid. 803(6); the witness must have actual knowledge of how the records were created and maintained — not just that they appear to be regular business records.
- Internal inconsistencies in a life care plan — such as projecting costs beyond the expert’s own work-life estimate to account for varying jury findings — go to the weight of the testimony and are properly tested through cross-examination, not exclusion.
Why It Matters
Holmes v. Smith is a practical checklist for Utah personal injury practitioners on both sides of the v. For plaintiffs’ counsel, the opinion reinforces that employer-provided benefits cannot limit a defendant’s damages exposure — a conclusion that should inform how life care plans are structured from the outset, with explicit notation that employer accommodations are collateral sources. Life care plan opinions that account for a range of possible work-life outcomes are not unreliable for doing so; minor internal inconsistencies are fodder for cross-examination, not grounds for wholesale exclusion.
For defendants’ counsel, the opinion is a reminder that medical records — a staple of personal injury trials — require genuine foundation from a witness who knows how those records were actually created and kept. Stipulating to authenticity for trial-management purposes does not waive the hearsay-exception foundation. And jury-instruction theories that are not specifically articulated as legal-adequacy arguments — rather than evidentiary-sufficiency arguments — risk being lost on appeal as unpreserved.