Frank Love Obtains Defense Verdict for Rideshare Driver Despite $1 Million Future Medical Cost Demand

November 2025 • Source: Zarwin Baum

Zarwin Baum’s client, a rideshare driver faced with a bodily injury claim from a passenger in another vehicle in a two-car motor vehicle accident and faced with a future Medical Cost Projection of nearly $1,000,000, won a defense verdict at trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in front of Judge Vincent L. Johnson, with stellar representation from Shareholder Frank Love.

The Plaintiff alleged that she was injured in the accident when the vehicle in which she was a rear seat passenger was backed into by the client.  The client reversed his vehicle into the Plaintiff’s vehicle from a complete stop at a stoplight to allow a SEPTA bus to make a right turn onto the street where both vehicles were located. Plaintiff alleged that the client backed up unannounced and “smashed” into the front of her vehicle. There was extremely minor damage to the rear of the rideshare driver’s vehicle and a small crack in the front bumper of the vehicle Plaintiff was riding in. The client did not appear at trial, and for that reason, among others, Frank conceded negligence at trial.

Plaintiff did not seek emergency medical treatment, went to physical therapy for four months, and received a radiofrequency ablation to her neck. At trial, Plaintiff’s medical expert and cost projection expert testified that Plaintiff would need a litany of future medical treatments, including physical therapy, epidural steroid injections, repeat ablations, and surgical intervention.  The Medical Cost Projection report set her life expectancy at an additional 51 years; hence, the nearly $1,000,000 claim for future medical costs.

At trial, Frank cross-examined the Plaintiff with facts tending to impeach her credibility, including that Plaintiff stayed at a friend’s house for two days after the accident, her lawyers directed her medical care and sent her to all the doctors she treated with, and obtained an admission from Plaintiff that she already knew she was receiving the ablation before she ever saw or spoke to Dr. Burt. Frank argued that the radiofrequency ablation and any claim for future medical costs were against the weight of the evidence and not supported medically.

Frank elicited testimony from Plaintiff’s medical expert that she had only been seen once and declined to revise his testimony even faced with the fact that Plaintiff had not had any of the treatment included in his report over the preceding two and a half years. The medical expert also testified that after five years, the surgical options would continue to become less viable. Three years after the accident, no treating doctor even suggested surgical intervention.

Similarly, Frank elicited testimony from the Medical Cost Projection expert, a registered nurse, that she had no information about Plaintiff’s current medical condition and, despite being a nurse, was not concerned with obtaining more information about the Plaintiff or even speaking with her before testifying that he required $1,000,000 in future medical costs. The expert testimony was committed to video before the motions in limine were decided.

After deliberating for less than an hour, the jury fully agreed and found for the rideshare driver, concluding that Plaintiff did not prove that the driver’s conduct was a factual cause of Plaintiff’s claimed damages. The verdict indicates that the jury did not believe the inflated damages claims and likely also found Plaintiff’s testimony not credible. Given the amount of the claimed future medical costs, the absence of his client at trial, and conceding negligence, the verdict marks an outstanding outcome for the client.