{"id":8891,"date":"2021-08-11T15:49:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T22:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/higgslaw.local\/?p=8891"},"modified":"2021-08-11T15:49:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T22:49:31","slug":"inflated-lien-based-medical-bills-now-admissible-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/higgslaw.com\/inflated-lien-based-medical-bills-now-admissible-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflated, Lien-Based Medical Bills Now Admissible in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On August 11, 2021, the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in <em>Qaadir v. Figueroa<\/em> (available <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courts.ca.gov\/opinions\/documents\/B306011.PDF\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>), which is a decidedly plaintiff-friendly decision holding unpaid medical bills are admissible as evidence of damages in a personal injury case.\u00a0 By way of background, in 2011, the California Supreme Court held that an award of economic damages in a personal injury case is limited to the lesser of (1) the amount paid or incurred and (2) the reasonable value of services rendered. \u00a0(<em>Howell v. Hamilton Meats &amp; Provisions, Inc.<\/em> (2011) 52 Cal.4th 541.)\u00a0 Since <em>Howell<\/em>, defendants in personal injury cases consistently argued \u2013 most of the time successfully so \u2013 that unpaid medical bills are inadmissible to show past economic damages.<\/p>\n<p>Since <em>Howell<\/em>, various court decisions have both expanded upon and limited the holding in <em>Howell<\/em>; some decisions favoring the defense (e.g., the <em>Ochoa v. Dorado<\/em> (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 120 line of cases), some favoring the plaintiff (e.g., the <em>Pebley v. Santa Clara Organics, LLC <\/em>\u00a0(2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 1266 line of cases.).\u00a0 <em>Qaadir<\/em> examined both <em>Ochoa <\/em>(supporting the argument the bills are not admissible), and <em>Pebley<\/em> (supporting the argument that medical bills are admissible under certain circumstances), and concluded that <em>Pebley <\/em>controls.\u00a0 In so holding, the Court of Appeal concluded that unpaid medical bills are admissible even in the absence of expert testimony that the bills constitute the \u201c<em>reasonable value\u201d<\/em> of the medical services.<\/p>\n<p>Although <em>Qaadir<\/em> is decidedly \u201cpro-plaintiff,\u201d the Court of Appeal also held that it was error for the trial court to exclude evidence that the Plaintiff\u2019s attorney referred him to lien-based doctors, which is a small victory for the defense in cases involving lien-based care.<\/p>\n<p><em>Qaadir<\/em> will effect both how defense addresses damages in a personal injury case, as well as how client and insurance carriers evaluate damages when the attorney refers Plaintiffs to lien-based doctors.\u00a0 At a minimum, we can expect an even greater frequency of lien-based medical treatment in personal injury cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On August 11, 2021, the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in Qaadir v. Figueroa (available here), which is a decidedly plaintiff-friendly decision holding unpaid medical bills are admissible as evidence&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attorney-articles","attorney-nicholas-d-brauns","practice-transportation-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Inflated, Lien-Based Medical Bills Now Admissible in California | Higgs Fletcher &amp; Mack\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On August 11, 2021, the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in Qaadir v. 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