R 4533-b.Proof of payment by joint tort-feasor

When one defendant settles out of a multi-defendant personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death case, the remaining defendant is often entitled to a credit against any verdict, reflecting what the plaintiff already recovered from the settling tortfeasor. CPLR 4533-b controls how that credit gets applied without distorting the jury's own damages assessment.

The statute keeps the jury out of it. Proof of payment by, or settlement with, another joint tortfeasor, offered by a defendant to mitigate damages, has to be taken outside the jury's hearing. A jury that learns a co-defendant already settled, and for how much, may adjust its own damages verdict to account for that fact, consciously or not, which is exactly the distortion this rule prevents.

Instead, the court handles the offset after the jury returns its award. Following the formula in General Obligations Law section 15-108, the court deducts the proper amount from what the jury awarded. The jury decides damages as though no one else had settled; the judge, not the jury, applies the credit.