You can also recover for reasonable and necessary medical expenses paid to treat the injuries you received from the defendant’s negligence. You have to have paid these expenses yourself or incurred a legal obligation to pay for them in order to recover money damages.
You can also recover for future medical expenses if you can show that in the future you will, more likely than not, need more medical services to treat the injuries caused by the defendant’s negligence.
Collateral Source Rule: If someone else is paying your medical bills, such as a private health insurance company, does the jury need to know or have the legal right to know that? Ordinarily, the answer is no under Massachusetts law. Many personal injury victim’s medical bills and expenses are covered by insurance. Often, an insurance company that pays such bills requires the plaintiff to pay them back out of any personal injury settlement or award. For this reason, and to promote fairness, defendants cannot present evidence that a plaintiff’s bills were paid by insurance or some other party in an effort to reduce the plaintiff’s award (or for any other reason).
The one exception in Massachusetts personal injury cases is where the plaintiff tries to present evidence that he or she is poverty stricken and, therefore, cannot pay the medical bills. Plaintiffs may do this for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is that if someone is paying your bills – whether that someone is an insurance company, a rich uncle, or whoever – don’t tell the jury you can’t pay your medical bills. If you do, the defendant can cross examine you about the insurance or third party payments of your bills, which could weaken your case.
The Boston Law Offices of Gilbert R. Hoy, Jr. and Affiliates is a group of Massachusetts lawyers from some of the best law offices in Massachusetts who have been personally selected by Attorney Hoy because of their skill, integrity, experience, talent and expertise.
