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Zlatnick v. Government Employees Insurance Co.11/25/2003
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Miscellaneous Reports.
(*1)
DECISION AND ORDER
This Court is asked to resolve an issue of first impression with wide ramifications for the conduct of no-fault litigation for first-party benefits. The issue is whether a (*2)defendant, defending a lawsuit seeking first-party benefits by an assignment, may simultaneously employ a demand for responses to interrogatories and a notice of deposition.
Generally, in no-fault litigation for first-party benefits, a medical provider has taken a patient's assignment of benefits. The healthcare professional, the assignee of such benefits, who has not been paid by the insurer for the medical services provided, then, if so advised, may commence a legal action against the insurer to recover such first-party benefits. The Civil Court of the City of New York is deluged with such actions, despite the intent of the Legislature, in enacting the no-fault laws, to establish an efficient way of providing "prompt compensation for losses incurred by accident victims without regard to fault or negligence to reduce the burden on the courts" (Medical Society of State of New York v. Serio, ___ NY2d ___, ____, 2003 NY Slip Op 17546, 2003 WL 22387581 [Oct. 21, 2003]). A review of the daily motion calendars of the Special Term Parts of the Civil Court will reveal that, by a conservative estimate, half of such motions concern no-fault first-party benefits.
The many motions and actions explain why a cottage industry has grown in law firms specializing in either the prosecution or defense of such claims. Various defense firms find different methods to contest such claims. Some defense firms appear to have resorted to filing jury demands for every first-party benefit case. The method employed by defense counsel in the present action is the routine, knee-jerk service of notices of deposition in every first-party benefits action and its insistence on a deposition, even (*3)where answers to a demand for written interrogatories has satisfied defendant's desire for information.
By a summons and complaint dated December 6, 2002, the plaintiff, Dr. Vladimir Zlatnick, the assignee of his patient Abram Aminov, submitted a bill in the amount of $2,946.47 to defendant Government Employees Insurance Company ("GEICO"). GEICO paid $114.33, leaving a balance of $2,832.14. GEICO's answer includes a denial and five affirmative defenses. On January 27, 2003, together with its answer, GEICO served upon plaintiff's counsel, Baker & Barshay, a law firm specializing in no-fault litigation on behalf of plaintiff medical providers, both a notice of deposition for Zlatnick's testimony and a set of interrogatories.
The set of interrogatories, set forth in tiny, single-spaced lettering, numbers 24 questions, but when they are examined closely, with its various subparts, they constitute about 70 questions. The interrogatories not only demand answers, but require that documents responsive to the questions be appended.
Plaintiff states that it responded in full to the interrogatories and attached a host of documents required by them. Plaintiff does not, however, attach a copy of its answers to the interrogatories, which would have been relevant to a determination of the critical legal issue at stake. Defendant GEICO, nevertheless, has not voiced any dissatisfaction or protest in any of its papers on the present motions to Zlatnick's responses to the interrogatories.
The gist of the protest between counsel for the litigants is the right to take (*4)depositions, or "examinations before trial" ["EBTs," as they are usually referred
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