A person injured by another’s negligence is entitled to recover the reasonable value of the necessary medical care she received for her injuries. Although most injured parties have their medical care paid for by a third party—either health insurance or a government program—which settles the medical bills for a significantly discounted amount, in Illinois the injured party can submit the actual billed charges with a proper foundation to seek recovery of more than was actually paid for her care. In Willis v. Foster, 229 Ill. 2d 393 (208), the Supreme Court of Illinois held that ...
Since 2005, Missouri attorneys have struggled with the interpretation and application of Missouri’s collateral source rule as it related to evidence of a plaintiff’s medical treatment bills. Generally speaking, the collateral source rule bars a defendant from introducing evidence that part of a plaintiff’s damages were paid for by a party other than the defendant; i.e., the plaintiff’s insurance company or some other form of public benefit. In Missouri, however, that rule had been applied to allow plaintiffs to present evidence of the total amount billed by a health care ...