Articles Posted in Personal Injury

The Illinois fourth District Court of Appeals decided, on July 15, 2016, in Miller vs. Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, that medical bills are not reduced to the amount paid by insurers in personal injury suits. This case creates a split in circuits because a different case entitled Perkey vs Portes -Jarol, from 2013 decides the opposite on virtually identical facts. In Perkey a party ask to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. With this court case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals there is a split in circuits, which suggests the Supreme Court will take this issue.

In Miller the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff on a medical malpractice claim. The jury awarded $638,347.91. Of that amount, $133,347.91 was represented plaintiff’s medical expenses. This defendant asked the court to enter judgment to reduce the jury’s verdict by $91,724.03. This would leave the Plaintiff with medical expenses recouped of $41,623.88. The court did so. The plaintiff appealed to the fourth District Court of Appeals. The $41,623.88 is the amount that the insurers paid. The remainder, $91,724.03, was written off.

In question is section 2 – 1205 of the Illinois court of civil procedure. The important part of 2 – 1205 provides that the defendants can get a reduction for 100% of the benefits “Which have been paid or have become payable to the injured person.” The court held that a write off by medical provider entitled to payment is the antithesis of a payment, by definition. It is not payable to anyone, least of all the injured person. The court held that the statute only allows a verdict to be reduced by the amount paid to the medical providers or payable to the plaintiff.

In one of the weirdest fact patterns in a long time the appellate court ruled on intentional infliction of emotional distress is a suicide case. Obviously, the law must accommodate even extremely weird fact patterns and this case is weird. Intentional infliction of emotional distress is an odd, and often maligned, cause of action. People in general, the author included, are very skeptical of emotional distress claims of any sort. Courts are also skeptical. However, in Turcois vs. Debruler the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decided a precedent-setting case.
In Turcois the question came up whether a plaintiff in an intentional inflection of emotional distress case can recover for suicide. Obviously, the discusses causation as an issue. The case arose at the motion to dismiss stage, as opposed to the motion for summary judgment stage. Accordingly, all allegations are taken as true by the court.
Plaintiff alleged as follows: plaintiff leased an apartment from the defendants for one year. There’s no suggestion that the plaintiff violated the lease in any way. Nevertheless, within 30 days of moving in the defendant began putting pressure on the plaintiffs to move out. Defendant sent a 30 day notice to vacate, despite the fact that the plaintiffs had a valid lease. Defendants called plaintiff pressuring them to move repeatedly. Exactly one month from the date they moved in Plaintiffs received a notice indicating that they must move out within three weeks. The notice indicated that washers and dryers would be removed. Plaintiffs attempted to pay rent, but the defendant declined to accept the check. Within six weeks of the date they moved in defendants gave plaintiffs a notice indicating the building was going to be demolished. Again, within six weeks of the plaintiffs moving in, the defendant allowed the demolition of the property to proceed around plaintiffs units. The demolition company tore into the outside walls of the building in which plaintiff’s unit was located and then began to demolish the units surrounding her unit. Five days later plaintiff’s decedent committed suicide, leaving a note saying “Please forgive me and my daughters, and you also Carmen. Sell the land and build the house.”
The trial court had concluded that because plaintiffs death as a result of suicide, they could not maintain wrongful death of survival action against the defendant as a matter of law. The appellate court reversed this decision. The appellate court distinguishes between negligence and intentional infliction. The court says that, based on Luss vs. Village of Forest Park, one cannot bring an action for death if one commits suicide in a negligence case. The court reviewed authority from other jurisdictions, including cases from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Wyoming, California, Indiana, [Kimberlin v Delong] and, more importantly, the Restatement of Torts (Second). The court concluded that the law does not allow the tortfeasor in cases of outrageous conduct of intentional nature to escape liability for that conduct where the tort is a substantial factor in the cause of the suicide. It discussed Section 46 of the Restatement at length.
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In Segovia vs. Romero the first district appellate court clarified what money a defendant may set off against a judgement. The case is somewhat unusual procedurally. The plaintiff in this case was the wife of a State Farm insured. The defendant in the case had driven his car into the rear end of the plaintiff’s vehicle. State Farm paid for her loss pursuant to her husband’s policy in the amount of $10,766.20, itemized as follows:

$5,000 Med Pay

$5,516 Property Damage

The Appellate Court recently decided a case involving the interplay between the Workers’ Compensation Act and joint liability in Ramirez v FCL Builders, Inc.

According to the Illinois Worker’s Compensation Act an employee cannot sue his or her employer for an injury. Instead, the employee must file a workers compensation claim. The Act says that there is no right to recover damages from the employer, so it is broadly drafted. 820 ILCS 305/5. However, courts have allowed suits by workers against third parties. Often, the third party will then sue the employer for negligence. Courts have allowed this.

To explain what I mean, if a worker, as part of his duties is driving a company vehicle and gets hit by a bad driver, the worker should have a workers’ compensation claim against his employer. The third party may argue the employer is at fault because the worker’s brakes did not function properly. If so, the third party should only pay for part of the loss and the employer should pay for part.