Reducing Medical Expenses One Bill at a Time
Attorneys Derek Bush and Megan Russell of our Jacksonville office recently secured a defense verdict in a case involving an admission of liability and tender rejection on behalf of our client’s insured.
The case involved a motor vehicle accident in Osceola County in 2021. The defendant driver violated the plaintiff’s right of way and caused a collision that rolled the plaintiff’s vehicle on its side. The plaintiff was taken to a local hospital and diagnosed with injuries to his neck, lower back, left wrist and right knee. Liability was clear and admitted by the defense prior to trial. Additionally, by the time the case made it into litigation and was referred to our firm, the policy limits of $100,000 had been tendered and rejected by the plaintiff.
Through discovery, our firm was able to extinguish most of the past medical expenses as being either written off or reduced by taking the billing record custodian deposition of several providers. The past medical bills having been significantly reduced, the plaintiff withdrew his past medicals claim. The plaintiff claimed significant related future medical bills, including two recommended spine surgeries. The treating physicians acknowledged that they did not know the cost of the future procedures. After discovery was complete, the plaintiff withdrew all medical expenses and proceeded on non-economic damages only.
At trial, the plaintiff’s experts opined that the accident worsened conditions that had been dormant prior to the collision and resulted in continuous pain for the plaintiff. All defense experts had consistent opinions that the plaintiff’s complaints were consistent with a longstanding process and that plaintiff did not suffer a permanent injury.
After nearly five hours of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of no permanency, resulting in a complete defense verdict.
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