West Hollywood Photographer Awarded $7.25M For Skateboarding Fall

LOS ANGELES, CA ‒ A jury Thursday ordered a Signal Hill-based health care provider to pay $7.25 million to a man who said he was permanently injured because of delays in getting treatment for a broken left hand.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury ruled in favor of 31-year-old Terry J. LaRue of West Hollywood in his negligence suit against Accountable Health Care IPA. LaRue was assigned Accountable Health Care as his medical group by Health Net of California Inc., which had developed a plan to maximize its market share under Obamacare, the suit stated.

However, Health Net did not set up adequate networks of physicians and other providers to fulfill its promises to provide affordable and accessible health care, the suit stated.

LaRue's skateboard fall occurred while he was working as a freelance sports photographer in Colorado in May 2014. He was referred by an emergency room doctor to an orthopedic physician so that surgery could be performed the next day, but the surgeon declined to accept LaRue's Health Net of California Inc. coverage, the lawsuit stated.

Numerous delays in getting surgery occurred and LaRue was not operated on until seven weeks after the injury, the suit stated. Accountable Health Care repeatedly authorized referrals to physicians who either were not hand surgeons or not part of LaRue's HMO network, according to the lawsuit.

"As a result of the delay of the treatment of his ... fracture, plaintiff has suffered a permanent and significant impairment of his left hand," the suit stated. "He has minimal movement of his left thumb and cannot hold or pick up anything that involves the thumb."

LaRue also developed a crippling condition known as complex regional pain syndrome and suffered financially when he could no longer grip a camera for use in his profession, the suit stated.

However, lawyers for Accountable Health Care stated in their court papers that LaRue never contacted their client when he was in Colorado, that the plaintiff was never denied a single request for authorization and that he attended less than half of his physical therapy sessions.

Health Net was dismissed as a defendant early in the trial.

‒ City News Service, photo via Shutterstock