Vermont Supreme Court Bars Workers’ Compensation Evidence From Negligence Jury
The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed a trial court’s exclusion of workers’ compensation evidence from a third-party negligence jury on July 17, holding that instructing jurors about an injured worker’s benefits and his obligation to reimburse them would improperly inject collateral-source material into damages deliberations.
The plaintiff, a FedEx courier, was injured while delivering a package to a Vermont home and sued the residents, alleging he slipped on a whiteboard on the ground that had blended in with the snow. A jury awarded him $59,372 in economic damages and $5,000 in noneconomic damages, according to a summary of the ruling published by WorkersCompensation.com. After comparative negligence, prejudgment interest, and costs, the final judgment came to $59,239.99.
Vermont applies the collateral source rule, under which juries in third-party negligence actions generally do not learn that a plaintiff has received insurance or workers’ compensation benefits. The courier’s post-verdict motion attacked that boundary directly, arguing the jury should have been told about the benefits precisely because the omission left jurors free to assume he had already been made whole.
The Workers’ Compensation Evidence the Courier Wanted Admitted
The trial court instructed the jury not to speculate about whether the parties had insurance or whether the plaintiff was entitled to workers’ compensation coverage, and told jurors their “job is to award the amount of damages that you determine has been established by all the evidence presented to you.”
The courier argued that instruction, standing alone, “left the jury to assume … that [he] somehow had insurance coverage for his ‘damages’ and could collect from that insurance,” per the WorkersCompensation.com account. He proposed a substitute charge acknowledging that he had received workers’ compensation benefits and telling jurors not to consider that fact “because [the courier] has a legal obligation to repay all such workers’ compensation benefits paid to him from any award.”
He also objected to defense counsel’s reference in closing to the standard applicable in a workers’ compensation case. The trial court called that reference “ill-advised” but declined to order a new trial, finding it “so oblique that any prejudicial effect was minimal.” It denied all of the post-trial motions on June 27, 2025, and the courier appealed.
What the Vermont Supreme Court Held
The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed in Tiedemann v. Wheeler, No. 25-AP-322 (Vt. July 17, 2026). It concluded that the trial court had “provided a reasoned basis for its decision” in refusing the proposed instruction and in declining to grant a new trial over defense counsel’s closing reference.
Telling jurors about workers’ compensation payments, even paired with an explanation of the reimbursement obligation, would improperly inject collateral-source evidence and risk influencing the damages determination, the court reasoned. It agreed with the trial court that the isolated reference to the workers’ compensation standard in closing argument was too indirect to have materially affected the verdict, citing Meyncke v. Meyncke, 980 A.2d 799 (Vt. 2009), for the proposition that a party’s disagreement with a discretionary ruling does not establish an abuse of discretion.
Why the Rule Held Even Though the Worker Wanted It Waived
The decision leaves in place the general Vermont rule that collateral-source information stays out of third-party negligence trials absent a compelling reason to admit it, even when the injured worker himself proposes the disclosure. As Risk & Insurance reported on July 27, the ruling “reinforces the strict boundaries around introducing liability coverage and workers’ compensation subrogation into jury deliberations.”
The disparity between the economic and noneconomic components of the verdict, $59,372 in economic damages against $5,000 for pain and suffering, was the practical driver of the appeal. The courier had framed the split as evidence of a compromise verdict traceable to jury confusion about insurance and workers’ compensation, an argument the Vermont Supreme Court rejected on the record before it.
