MAY, J.
Hadley Fruits, as personal representative of the Estate of Elizabeth Ann Cadou, sued Hematology-Oncology of Indiana (hereinafter “Hematology”) for medical malpractice and wrongful death. A jury found for the Estate, and the trial court awarded attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses to the Estate. Hematology asserts the court erred by awarding fees, costs, and expenses. As such an award is available under the Wrongful Death Act (WDA) or the Adult Wrongful Death Act (AWDA),1 and the award does not cause the Estate’s recovery to exceed the cap provided in the Medical Malpractice Act, we affirm.
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. . . Hematology invites us to disregard the explicit “but not limited to” language in the AWDA and to find the damages provisions in the two statutes in conflict. Even if the phrase “may include but are not limited to” were sufficiently ambiguous to permit construction of the AWDA, we could not reach the result Hematology proposes.
A court’s first task in statutory interpretation is to attempt to harmonize two conflicting statutes. State v. Universal Outdoor, Inc., 880 N.E.2d 1188, 1191 (Ind. 2008). If two statutes can be read in harmony with one another, we presume the Legislature intended for them both to have effect. Id. Where two statutes are apparently inconsistent in some respects and yet can be rationalized to give effect to both, it is a reviewing court’s duty to do so. Wright v. Gettinger, 428 N.E.2d 1212, 1219 (Ind. 1981). It is only when there is an irreconcilable conflict that we will interpret the legislature to mean that one statute must give way to another. Id.
The WDA and the AWDA are not in conflict, and they can easily be read in harmony. Both statutes explicitly apply to actions for the wrongful death of adult persons who have no dependents when they die. The WDA explicitly permits recovery of attorney’s fees; the AWDA explicitly prohibits only two categories of damages, damages for grief and punitive damages, [footnote omitted] then explicitly provides available damages under that section “are not limited to” the named categories of “[r]easonable medical, hospital, funeral, and burial expenses” and “[l]oss of the adult person’s love and companionship.” Ind. Code § 34-23-1-2.
We must accordingly decline Hematology’s invitation to disregard the explicit “but not limited to” language in the AWDA and to find the damages provisions in the two statutes in conflict. We hold the legislature did not intend that the AWDA implicitly take away a category of damages explicitly permitted in the WDA.
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Durham does not require reversal, as attorney’s fees are in the nature of compensatory, rather than punitive, damages. See Harkrider v. Lafayette Nat. Bank, 613 N.E.2d 36, 44 n.6 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993) (“[B]y definition „attorney’s fees’ are designed to compensate a party for actual legal expenses incurred as a result of an appeal. Thus, attorney’s fees are compensatory rather than punitive in nature.”) (emphasis supplied). And see Marion Community School Corp. v. Marion Teachers Ass’n, 873 N.E.2d 605, 609 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (arbitrator’s award of attorney’s fees was “compensatory in nature,” as the fees were awarded to reimburse a teacher for the expenses of arbitrating his wrongful discipline). 5
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The Estate’s recovery of attorney’s fees is permitted under the WDA or the AWDA, and the award does not cause the Estate’s recovery to exceed the limit provided in the MMA. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s award.
Affirmed.
BAILEY, J., and BARNES, J., concur.
1 We acknowledge that in McCabe v. Comm’r, Ind. Dept. of Ins., no. 49A02-0908-CV-728 (Ind. Ct. App. Jul. 20, 2010), a panel of this court addressed the availability of attorney’s fees under the AWDA and reached a conclusion contrary to that we reach today. As explained in note five below, after careful evaluation of the McCabe panel’s analysis of the same question that is before us, we decline to follow that panel’s rationale.
5 In Butler v. Indiana Dept. of Ins., 904 N.E.2d 198 (Ind. 2009), our Indiana Supreme Court held an estate may not recover the difference between medical expenses billed and the amount accepted by medical providers pursuant to a contractual agreement. It noted the AWDA specifies that damages are allowable for “[r]easonable medical, hospital . . . expenses necessitated by” the wrongful conduct that caused the death. Id. at 202. “Where charges for medical services are initially billed but thereafter settled for a lower amount pursuant to agreements with health insurers or government agencies, the difference is not a ‘necessitated’ expense.” Id.
The Butler Court acknowledged the language in the AWDA that damages “may include but are not limited to the following,” but said: “This open-ended phrase permits recovery of damages other than those items designated in subsections (c)(3)(A) and (c)(3)(B), but does not direct the expansion of the circumscribed damages defined within (A) and (B). The ‘include but not limited to’ phrase does not expand the class of such necessitated expenses.” Id. at 202-03.
The McCabe panel, relying on Butler, determined the “may include but are not limited to” language does not permit attorney’s fees because such a result would similarly “expand the circumscribed damages defined by the general assembly.” McCabe, no. 49A02-0908-CV-728, slip op. at 12. We respectfully disagree with that interpretation. As explained above, we believe Kuba instructs us that the “may include but are not limited to” language permits other categories of compensatory damages, such as attorney’s fees, but is not so open-ended as to permit non-compensatory, i.e., punitive, damages.