After every auto accident injury lawsuit is filed, an independent medical exam (IME) is almost always required by auto insurance companies and personal injury defense law firms.
IME doctors are hired to do one time "examinations" of the injured plaintiffs, write reports and testify.
These IME doctors make vast amounts of money, testifying 99 percent of the time on behalf of the defense.
They almost always minimize the personal injuries or damages to the plaintiff based upon one-time, 15-minute exams.
If these issues of bias are not exposed, then a jury may actually mitigate the damages and compensation that your client deserves, especially when many IME doctors write typically nasty reports ripping apart injured clients and saying there is nothing wrong with them.
If you are a personal injury lawyer, there isn't a whole lot you can do about this either.
IMEs are a big part of how defendants and insurance companies defend lawsuits.
States with no bad faith or punitive damages to protect car accident victims are seeing these IME doctors providing more outlandish testimony than in most other states.
The main insurance company defense strategy seems to be to turn to IMEs now more aggressively than ever - so they can find "nothing wrong" with seriously injured accident victims.
There are important lessons here for all personal injury attorneys.
First, most IME doctors are routinely asked how often they testify and how much they make.
This information is important to show bias.
These doctors know it, and instead of answering truthfully, the usual response is an "I don't know.
" This is almost always a lie, but rarely do personal injury attorneys aggressively follow up to get this information.
It is up to the personal injury attorney to get this information by issuing subpoenas for 1099s and other payments from the various auto insurance companies and defense lawyers and law firms that hire these notorious IME doctors.
As an example, some years ago, a notorious defense neurologist told me under cross-examination that he had "no idea" how much money he was making performing defense exams and IMEs for various insurance companies.
After our deposition, I issued subpoenas to the doctor.
It turned out he was making $500,000 a year, just performing these one-time exams on behalf of defendants in personal injury lawsuits.
When doctors refuse to comply with mandatory federal court discovery and disclose how often they testify and for which side in a lawsuit, then we have a serious problem.
It is up to personal injury attorneys to explain just how unfair these one-time, partisan insurance defense doctors can be in wrecking innocent people's one chance to a fair and just car accident lawsuit.
When dealing with IMEs in depositions and at trial, your best approach is to investigate the doctor's payments from insurance companies and defense law firms and be prepared with knowledge of how the defense will use these exams against your client.