Court: Reduced Award Necessitated Recalculation of Settlement Offsets

SAN FRANCISCO -- A California Court of Appeal has recalculated the amount of damages awarded in an asbestos case, ruling that the plaintiff's acceptance of a reduction in future non-economic damages required the court to rework the ratio between economic and non-economic damages. Bakkie v. Union Carbide Corp., No. A121627 (Calif. 1st Dist. Ct. App., Div. 2).

In the Feb. 27 opinion, the First District Court of Appeal found that as soon as the reduced damage amount was accepted by the plaintiff, a prior nunc pro tunc judgment entered shortly after the jury's verdict became outdated.

Terry Bakkie claimed that …