Susan Parzymieso and John Land of our firm teamed up to obtain disallowance of a potentially expensive bilateral hip claim. The claimant fell from a height while doing construction work. Although he had included the bilateral hips on his initial claim form, the first time the hips are mentioned in any medical report is fully nine months after the date of accident. Medical evidence sufficient to move the issue to trial was not found until a subsequent treating doctor filed a report relating the hips to the accident three years later. John deposed the treating provider and got him to admit that he did not have sufficient information about the mechanism of injury to form an opinion on causal relationship. John also got the doctor to admit that MRI findings were more likely the result of an idiopathic condition or genetic predisposition than a traumatic injury.
At oral argument, Susan argued that the claimant lacked contemporaneous treatment for the hips following the injury and despite the hips being listed on his claim form, the mechanism of injury was a fall landing on the right side which would be inconsistent with a bilateral hip injury. The judge concluded that it was incredible that the claimant would have a traumatic injury involving both hips. The hip injury was disallowed in its entirety.
Like all of us at Hamberger and Weiss, Susan and John are “hip” to the best methods of cross-examination and persuasive argument, putting our clients in the best position to win on critical issues.
