Mussio Goodman Prevents Insurance Company Doctor Examination of Our Client 

We are pleased to announce our recent success in defending our client’s interests by preventing an independent medical examination (IME) with a neurologist chosen by the insurance company.

IMEs are often obtained by both the claimant and the insurer over the course of a claim in order to produce medical-legal opinions that support each side’s position with respect to the cause and extent of the claimant’s injuries. 

The insurer is therefore entitled to compel a claimant to attend an IME, but such an entitlement must be exercised reasonably and fairly. 

In our client’s case, after colliding with a vehicle while riding her bike, she suffered various injuries including a concussion, vestibular dysfunction and other soft-tissue injuries. 

Over the course of the claim, our client consented to two IMEs selected by the insurer, one with an ENT doctor, and the other a psychiatrist.

However, we drew the line at the insurer’s  third request that our client attend an additional IME with a neurologist. In response, the insurer applied for a court order that would have compelled our client to comply. 

We argued that a third IME is superfluous and would put the parties on unequal footing, and that the insurer had yet to produce the reports from their two previous IMEs, and is therefore ‘doctor shopping’ until they find an opinion they liked. We further argued that without the benefit of seeing the two previous reports, we cannot be sure that the previous doctors already addressed the very issues that a neurologist would. 

 The Court ultimately agreed with our submissions and dismissed the insurer’s application on the basis that what they were asking for was an improper “shotgun approach”.