August 16, 2022. Senior Associate Ankur Trivedi tried a case to a 12 person Jury in Barrow County with Associate Attorney Davis Lackey serving as second-chair. The lawsuit arose out of a rear-end collision which occurred on Oct. 30, 2019 and the plaintiff alleged over $74,000 in medical bills which she related to the collision.
Plaintiff presented a medical narrative which provided an opinion that her injuries were related to the automobile collision. On cross-examination of the Plaintiff, defense counsel impeached Plaintiff regarding two substantial facts. First, Plaintiff testified that this collision resulted in frequent headaches, and when the defense presented Plaintiff with pre-loss emergency room records regarding headaches, Plaintiff denied the substance of those records, claiming instead that her pre-loss headaches were a result of dehydration. Second, Plaintiff attempted to blame her six-month gap in treatment on COVID-19, but on cross-examination, the defense presented Plaintiff with her subject medical records wherein, in December 2019, she told her treating providers that she did not feel any more pain and wished to discontinue treatment.
The defense presented the testimony of Board-Certified Radiologist, Dr. Barry Jeffries, MD, who walked the jury through the MRIs of Plaintiff’s spine. Dr. Jeffries explained to the jury that the positive findings on the Plaintiff’s imaging studies regions could not have been caused by the collision and would have pre-dated the collision. The defense also presented the video-taped deposition of a medical billing expert.
After the close of evidence, the Jury deliberated for three hours before returning a verdict for the defense.
The Case is Hill v. Yarbrough, State Court of Barrow County CAFN 21-SV-000057
