The following blog entry is written from a defendant’s position after a jury trial verdict for plaintiff. Reviewing this kind of briefing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in a personal injury case present such issues to the court.
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this auto accident/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
The remaining amount of nearly $2,000,000 in the “life care plan” includes $837,000 for interventional pain therapies that Mr. Ward’s own experts admit he may or may not need; $413,400 in household help and attendant care that he may or may not need; and $350,000 for lumbar and cervical spine surgeries based on the estimate of Dr. Sam Stein. The lesser amounts are for items which are even more speculative: $113,838 for supposedly anticipated medical evaluations and treatment in every conceivable field of medicine (including psychiatry, psychology, podiatry, dentistry, gastroenterology, urology, neurology, and internal medicine) which his experts and attorneys are once again being disingenuous in suggesting are tied to actual anticipated expenses; “other therapeutic interventions” in the projected amount of $90,855; additional diagnostic studies totaling $51,743; and a projected cost of $34,625 for emergency room visits.
These costs simply bear no rational relation to any expected, concrete future expense. And those few that do bear at least some rational relation (e.g., the surgeries by Dr. Stein and the interventional pain therapies consisting of the opium pump) are wildly inflated and unsupported as to their amounts.
Mr. Ward’s attorneys and the parade of experts knew how to work the system, and they did it well. They relied on the jury’s expected unwillingness to critically assess whether each claimed future expense had been justified as to its amount and its likelihood to occur. So, as expected, the jury took the easy way out and likely just cut about a third of the charges, leaving Mr. Ward and his attorneys and experts to share an amount for supposed future medical costs which still constitutes an outrageous departure from reality. The award of future medical costs must be reduced substantially, or a new trial must be ordered. (See Part 8 of 14.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.