UNITED AUTOMOBILE
v.
MIAMI DADE MRI MARIA MORALES

11th Cir. Ct. App. Div. | 2020-06-03
No. 2017-275-AP-01
1 FLCA 6881 Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, Appellate Division (2020)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

United Automobile Insurance Co. appeals a trial court's grant of summary judgment for a medical provider in a dispute over the reasonableness of MRI bills. The appellate court reversed, finding it was an abuse of discretion to exclude UAIC's expert affidavit regarding the reasonableness of the medical charges.

Holding

The trial court abused its discretion in excluding UAIC's conflicting affidavit on the reasonableness of medical bills, and therefore the grant of summary judgment was error. Summary judgment was improper because the excluded affidavit created a genuine dispute of material fact.

Headnotes

[1] Excluding a conflicting affidavit on the reasonableness of medical bills constitutes an abuse of discretion.

[2] Summary judgment is erroneous when a conflicting affidavit regarding the reasonableness of medical bills is improperly excluded.

Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence
Key Quotes

“it was an abuse of discretion to exclude UAIC's conflicting affidavit on whether the medical bills at issue were reasonable in price.”

Establishes the core holding that exclusion of UAIC's expert affidavit was improper and a reversible error.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence
Facts & Procedural History

UAIC challenged medical bills submitted by Miami-Dade MRI on behalf of patient Maria Morales. UAIC offered an expert affidavit from Dr. Edward Dauer t…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.

Opinion of the Court

Before: TRAWICK, WALSH and DE LA O1, JJ.

COPIES FURNISHED TO COUNSEL

OF RECORD AND TO ANY PARTY

NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

Footnotes
1 Judge de la O did not participate in oral argument. Filing # 109280745 E-Filed 06/23/2020 02:52:04 PM [*2] Page 2 of 3 PER CURIAM. (UAIC) appeals the trial court’s order granting final summary judgment on behalf of the Provider. Here, the trial court rejected the conflicting affidavit offered by UAIC of Dr. Edward Dauer. As this panel and the majority of prior panels from this Court have found, it was an abuse of discretion to exclude UAIC’s conflicting affidavit on whether the medical bills at issue were reasonable in price. Taking UAIC’s excluded affidavit into account, it was error to grant summary judgment. See United Auto. Ins. Co. v. Miami-Dade MRI a/a/o Bermudez, 2018- 164 (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. June 3, 2020); State Farm Mutual Ins. Co. v. Gables Insurance Recovery a/a/o Yuderis Rego, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 860a (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Nov. 20. 2019); United Automobile Insurance Co. v. Open MRI of Miami Dade, Ltd. a/a/o Rosa Castillo, Case No. 2017-326-AP-01 (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Nov. 6, 2019); United Automobile Insurance Co., Appellant, v. Miami Dade County MRI, Corp. a/a/o Marta Figueredo, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 506b (Fla. 11th Cir. App. July 30, 2019); United Automobile Insurance Co., Appellant, v. Miami Dade County MRI, Corp. a/a/o Javier Rodriguez, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 225c (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. July 25, 2019); United Automobile Insurance Co., Appellant, v. Miami Dade County MRI, Corp. a/a/o Rene Dechard, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 226a (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct., August 12, 2019); United Automobile Insurance Co., Appellant, v. Millennium Radiology, LLC a/a/o Javier Rodriguez, 25 Fla. L. [*3] Page 3 of 3 Weekly Supp. 911b (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct., July 19, 2019). Accordingly, the summary judgment and final judgment entered below are hereby REVERSED, and this cause is REMANDED to the trial court. Appellee’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees is DENIED. Appellant’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees is conditionally GRANTED (conditioned upon Appellant ultimately prevailing and the enforceability of the proposal for settlement) and REMANDED to the trial court to fix amount.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw