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An appellate court, a few weeks ago, had given its opinion regarding a car accident in Boca Raton Florida in which the court was to ascertain if the jury had the right to decline to award the plaintiff future medical expenses when the defendant could not provide any contradictory expert testimony. The court had regarded the plaintiff’s expert testimony as “far from conclusive”, therefore it agreed that the jury was within its right to make the decision it did.

The facts of the case

The plaintiff had been injured in a car accident in Florida. The accident had been caused by another driver who did not have insurance or whose insurance was not sufficient to cover the injuries sustained by the plaintiff. Consequently, the plaintiff’s car accident lawyer in Boca Raton had to file an insured/underinsured claim with her own insurance company.

Although the injuries of the plaintiff were not conclusively established, her neurosurgeon had testified that she had degenerative disc disease.

The insurance company, however, insisted that the disease was not caused by the accident, although they agreed that the other driver was to blame for the accident. To buttress its point, the insurance company had intended to present the testimony of three expert witnesses, but the court disallowed the jury from considering the expert testimony.

In his testimony, the plaintiff neurosurgeon revealed that he had performed a bone-fusion procedure on the plaintiff due to an aggravation of a pre-existing condition. Although he couldn’t say for sure when the disease began, the surgeon revealed that the plaintiff suffered from a degenerative disease. According to the surgeon, the accident and the surgery that followed had a likelihood of increasing the chance that the plaintiff will need further surgery in the future, by as much as 15-20%.

The verdict of the jury had been in favor of the plaintiff, awarding her $7,000 for wages lost. However, the plaintiff’s car accident lawyer in Boca Raton made a motion for a new trial, which was granted by the court. The action of the court was due to the fact that her expert testimony had not been refuted. The insurance company had appealed this motion.

The basis of the appeal by the insurance company was that the plaintiff’s expert did not clearly state, with complete certainty, that the accident had caused the injury or that it would definitely lead to future complications. Therefore, it argued that the jury was free to arrive at the conclusion that it did.

The court had agreed with the reasoning of the insurance company. It stated that the expert’s opinion was vague, thereby allowing the jury to arrive at the conclusion that the accident would not cause any permanent damage to the plaintiff.