Verdict against Allstate for overdue no fault benefits is upheld
Nineteen year-old plaintiff Daniel Boynton suffered a brain injury in a 1991 motor vehicle collision. He has experienced continuing related difficulties. Allstate, in typical "good hands or boxing gloves" fashion, denied atttendant care and other benefits to Boynton after 2004, maintiaining that his problems were not accident related. In 2005, when he moved into the Ann Arbor Rehabilitation Center and made it his home, Allstate refused to pay for his attendant care and other related expenses.
The jury rejected Allstate's claim and awarded Boynton all of his medical expenses except room and board. The Court of Appeals upheld this verdict and also rejected Allstate's claim that it should have been allowed to take the treating doctors' testimony in advance, "for discovery only", without allowing the depositions to be used at trial. The various judges held that Allstate's request would have simply added an additional, significant layer of expense to the parties' effort to resolve their conflict. In an earlier entry on this site, we explained the Allstate business plan which was documented by earlier court discovery of Allstate's internal memoranda: if the victim won't accept a reduced compromise, he or she should be pummelled into submission by "no holds barred" litigation.