[mmusson]

I was a juror on a very small case. A previous trial assigned guilt. Our trial was to determine damages. It was eye opening for me. We were not allowed to know things like medical bills and costs the victim incurred. We were forced to choose some number without having an basis for establishing the magnitude. I still don’t know if we were too high or too low.

[tiahura]

Ambulance chaser here. The most common reasons I don’t offer evidence of bills in a trial are that Medicaid paid the bill for pennies on the dollar, or the hospital wrote off the bills.

In many jurisdictions, if the Plaintiff chooses to introduce evidence of bills, they can only submit the amount still owed or actually paid to satisfy the bill, and the amount that was written off or contractually adjusted stays out.

Often, Medicaid may pay $700 on a $15,000 bill. Since the size of the bills tend to frame the non-economic damages (pain & suffering) awarded by juries, Plaintiffs’ attorneys don’t want small bill numbers to influence the juries into a minimal award. So, they just don’t introduce evidence of bills and hope that juries assume big bills or base their award on something else.

[albedoa]

Wouldn't it then be prudent for the defendant to introduce that evidence? Do they ever do that to achieve the effect on perceived non-economic damages that you describe?

[tiahura]

It might be, but they can’t. If plaintiff doesn’t ask for compensation for the bills then an itemized bill isn’t relevant evidence to any of the claims or defenses in the case.

[somenits]

If you weren't allowed to see medical bills and such, then you were probably tasked with determining other kinds of damages (e.g. emotional distress) that are totally unrelated to those.

[harimau777]

It seems to me that medical bills would be a major contributor to distress.

[somenits]

How would you like it if you were a plaintiff suffering severe lifelong emotional distress but the jury saw that the medical bills were only $1000? It's not as simple as you make it out to be.