California: Medical Damages / Lien Physicians

SUMMARY OF AMICUS BRIEF FILED 4/19/2021

In April 2021, TIDA filed an amicus brief with the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Eight, in the case entitled Malak Qaadir v. Ubalso Figuero and Pacifica Trucks, LLC., in support of the defendants/appellants Figueroa and Pacifica Trucks.  The brief joins in the amicus brief filed by the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel (the ASCDC brief starts at PDF page 16 of 75).  The issue is the proper measure of medical damages in personal injury actions, where the truck accident involved a low impact and minor injuries but the jury awarded $3.4 mil. and where the plaintiff (with medical insurance) chose to treat with lien-physicians (as if there was no medical insurance) and thus the plaintiff’s evidence was unpaid medical bills at inflated prices (not at marketplace value).  Plaintiff’s theory of the case was that the accident resulted in total disability and massive medical expense and to build up his claim for medical damages, Plaintiff was determined, however, to prevent the jury from learning that (a) he was insured and could have mitigated his damages by receiving treatment from his contracted providers, and (b) it was his attorney who had referred him to the lien-physicians who were responsible for most of the medical expenses claimed. Plaintiff was equally determined to put his full medical bills before the jury, knowing that they were not representative of what he should recover. Defendants’ theory was that the low-impact accident resulted in only minor injury, which in turn should have resulted in only a minor loss of earnings. Plaintiff and his lien-physicians had an incentive to maximize, rather than mitigate, damages. However, the trial court’s evidentiary decisions blocked Defendants from presenting evidence of how Plaintiff had built up his case. TIDA members Robert Morgenstern and Ninos Saroukhanioff of the Morgenstern Law Group in Woodland Hills, CA filed the amicus brief on behalf of TIDA.

The request to submit the amicus brief came from TIDA members John Shaffery and Jaion Chung of Poole Shaffery & Koegle in Santa Clarita, CA.  Mr. Shaffery was lead trial counsel for Defendants.

download the amicus brief