Background
Marrietta Reinberger sued her uninsured-motorist carrier, Progressive Select Insurance Company, after a December 2019 automobile accident involving an underinsured or uninsured driver. A jury assigned 90% of the fault to the other driver and 10% to Reinberger. It awarded her $230,000 in future medical expenses and $1.19 million in future noneconomic damages.
Reinberger’s life-care-planning expert estimated $233,478 in future care, including medication, specialist visits, physical therapy, diagnostic studies, a TENS unit, injections, and radiofrequency ablations. Much of his testimony described treatments that Reinberger “may,” “could,” or “potentially” receive. Her treating physician’s assistant expected to manage her condition solely with medication, and Reinberger testified that she did not presently intend to pursue physical therapy, additional injections, or radiofrequency ablation. The trial court nevertheless denied Progressive’s motions for a directed verdict and posttrial relief.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District held that Progressive was entitled to a directed verdict on future medical expenses other than the conceded $17,850 attributable to medication. Florida law permits recovery only for future medical expenses reasonably certain to be incurred, and neither an expert’s conclusory invocation of “reasonable medical certainty” nor testimony framed in terms of possibilities and contingencies satisfies that standard.
The court reversed the future-medical award except for medication expenses and remanded with instructions to strike the unsupported portion from the final judgment. It declined to disturb the $1.19 million future-noneconomic-damages award because the record did not establish that the jury based that award on the defective future-medical calculation. The court rejected Progressive’s remaining evidentiary arguments and otherwise affirmed. Judge Atkinson agreed with the future-medical ruling and the result concerning noneconomic damages but dissented from the majority’s rejection of Progressive’s challenges to the admission of Reinberger’s life-care planner and the exclusion of Progressive’s equivalent-forces testimony.
Key Takeaways
- A plaintiff seeking future medical expenses must prove both that the care is reasonably certain to occur and a reasonably certain amount for that care.
- Proposed treatments described as treatments a patient “may,” “could,” or “potentially” undergo are too speculative, even if an expert later characterizes the overall plan as medically certain.
- Invalidating future-medical damages does not automatically require a new trial on noneconomic damages when the record provides an independent basis for the noneconomic award.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the evidentiary line between reasonably certain future treatment and a life-care plan built from possible treatment options. Attorneys presenting future-medical claims should connect each claimed service to concrete medical recommendations and evidence that the plaintiff is likely to obtain it.
The ruling also shows that appellate relief may be limited to the unsupported economic component of a verdict when noneconomic damages rest on separate evidence, such as continuing pain, insomnia, lost independence, and changes in daily life.