[QUOTE=John Mace]
Is it possible that his insurance company requires that he sue in order to make a claim, though? I have no idea how this works, but if the insurance company finds Yale to be at fault, this might explain it. If it is, I don’t know whether the lawsuit would be initiated by Bork or his insurance company, or if the former whether or not the insurance company would show up on the lawsuit.
[/QUOTE]
No. This is handled by the law of subrogation. The insurer, typically, is subrogated to Bork’s rights. If it found Yale at fault, the insurer could sue for what it paid out. This almost never happens. Instead the injured person sues, the jury isn’t permitted to hear about his insurance coverage (this is called the collateral source rule), and then if everybody plays fair, and if he wins the case, the insurance company gets its money back out of the judgment or settlement. If everybody doesn’t play fair, the Plaintiff may not report the lawsuit to the insurance company, and might try to keep :eek: the double recovery for himself.
[QUOTE=Fish]
Some medical insurance companies won’t cover an accident if they think some other insurance company can reasonably be put on the hook for it. This happens all the time with an elderly patient on Medicare, for instance, who slips and falls at Wal*Mart; or who gets into an MVA; or who get into an auto accident.
[/QUOTE]
I think you are confusing two things:
Primary responsibility for medical bills among first party insurers (those who have an obligation to pay medical bills for the plaintiff; health, no-fault auto, worker’s compensation) and liability of third-parties and their liability insurers. It’s true that first party insurers will bicker among themselves about whose coverage is primary. It’s false that they can force an injured person to sue the person that injured them in order to get their medical bills paid. One first party insurer or another is liable (assuming the plaintiff has redundant first party coverages).
So the slip and fall at Wal Mart doesn’t fit the pattern, and neither does Bork’s case. As a Federal Judge he’s got first party medical insurance. The insurer simply can’t say, “Yale hurt you, get them to pay.” That defeats the purpose of first party medical insurance. OTOH, if he was in an automobile accident, there could be a dispute between his automobile insurer and his health insurer over who was primarily responsible for the tab.
For the record, I agree with **Otto **. Bork got his medical bills paid, and is seeking compensation for exactly the sort of thing that tort reformers say should be unavailable, or at least limited. Filing a lawsuit is optional, and the types of damages sought is too. He could easily have sued for out-of-pocket expenses and set an example. Instead, he sued for one million dollars, I don’t dispute that he may be entitled to it under existing law; In fact, I disagree with much of the tort reform agenda. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s taking advantage of a regime that he’d like to overturn. Some of the reports say he’s even seeking punitive damages, which makes him an even bigger hypocrite.
