Aunt sues nephew, 12, for six figures over broken wrist

IANAL and don't know the ins and outs of it, but it would not surprise me to find that the claimant has to be the plaintiff in these sorts of actions. I could definitely envision some serious agency problems if that weren't the case.

 

Yeah, but at that point they might tell you that you're going to get to cover the costs of your treatment (and, hell, maybe they'd sue you to recover!). I bet somewhere in your health insurance contract there are clauses that spell out exactly your obligations (as the insured) in such circumstances. If you think about it, it almost has to be done that way. Otherwise they'd have to eat the cost of treatment they really aren't obligated to provide (because, legally, someone else is responsible) at your discretion. I bet it's standard practice.

Well, it sort of is. In the second story, she says "... as I understand it, in Connecticut, it's not possible to name an insurance company in a suit of a homeowners insurance case. An individual has to be named, and in this case, because Sean and I had this fall together, I was informed that Sean had to be named. I was never comfortable with that."

 

I'm embarrassed for this country.

From this particular suit to suits for tripping on someone's lawn to a $70K medical bill for a couple of broken bones.

We are a fucking embarrassment.

 

Couldn't have said it any better. We could do a whole other thread on price gouging by hospitals.

 

Easy there, comrade.

 

I assume you're talking about my wife's experience. Remember that I quoted what I call the "sticker price" there. That's before the usual negotiated discounts kicked in, which took the total down to around $25K as I recall. We wound up being on the hook for around 10% of that.

The thing is that her injury was a serious one. She broke both bones in her forearm just below the wrist. Back in the day they'd have immobilized it as best they could and then let nature take its course, but the bones would have slipped over time given the mechanics of the forearm-wrist connections. And each slip would lead to greater loss of function in that wrist/hand. There was some hope that she wouldn't need surgery, but over a two-week period you could see the bones slipping with each successive X-ray.

It was a very, very intensive surgery, requiring separate incisions for each break (one on the inner forearm, one on the outer forearm) and custom-made plates (one plastic, one titanium) at each juncture. She was in the operating room itself -- not pre-op, not post-up, but actually under the knife -- for close to six hours. She was in the hospital for three days. Then, when she was able, she began something like a six-month course of intensive physical therapy. Ultimately she came away with virtually no lost function.

My wife was very fortunate that she lives in an area where there are hand specialists who can do that kind of surgery. If she lived in some backwater, they'd have fixed her up for a lot cheaper, but her abilities with that hand would have been severely compromised.

All of this is to say that this wasn't just "a couple of broken bones."