§ 25-1222.01.Advance payment by person or corporation to injured person; not admission against interest; credit for payment; not admissible as evidence at trial.

Insurers and other potential defendants sometimes want to help an injured person with expenses before liability has been sorted out, without that assistance being turned against them later. Section 25-1222.01 makes that possible. Advance or partial payments of damages made by an insurance company or other person, firm, trust, or corporation, as an accommodation to an injured person, to others on the injured person’s behalf, or to the heirs or dependents of someone who died, are not construed as an admission of liability by whoever made the payment, and are not treated as recognition of liability with respect to that injury, death claim, property loss, or related claim arising from the same event.

The section also settles what happens to the money at the end of the case. Any such payment counts as a credit and gets deducted from whatever final settlement or judgment results, so the payer does not end up paying twice for the same loss. And it keeps the jury from ever learning about the payments in the first place: at trial, the fact that such payments were made is not admissible in evidence and cannot be brought to the jury’s attention, with the amount of any credit against a judgment handled separately by the court or by stipulation of the parties.

Together these protections encourage early, voluntary assistance to injured people and their families. Without them, an insurer or potential defendant might hold back from helping until liability was fully resolved, out of concern that the help itself would be used as proof of fault.