Bradford, C.J.
Case Summary
Daniel Gladstone was injured in an automobile accident in 2016, suffering a Colles Fracture, for which he received medical treatment. [Footnote omitted.] In 2018, Gladstone sued the tortfeasor for negligence, and she was dismissed from the case after she tendered her insurance policy’s limit of $50,000.00. Gladstone continued against his insurance provider West Bend Mutual Insurance Company, seeking to recover pursuant to his underinsured-motorist (“UIM”) coverage. Gladstone eventually dropped his claim for medical expenses, electing to seek damages for pain and suffering only. West Bend nevertheless sought to introduce evidence of Gladstone’s medical bills at trial, and the trial court admitted the evidence over Gladstone’s objection. The jury awarded Gladstone $0.00. Gladstone contends that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of his medical bills, regarding settlement negotiations, and of insurance payments in violation of Indiana’s collateral source statute. Because we reject Gladstone’s first argument and conclude that his last two are waived for appellate review, we affirm.
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As the parties point out, the question of whether evidence of medical bills is admissible in a proceeding in which recovery of them is not sought has not been specifically addressed in Indiana. Gladstone argues that evidence of medical bills is never relevant to the question of pain and suffering and that, because he did not seek medical expenses in this case, the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the bills. Gladstone also argues that, even if evidence of his medical bills is relevant, the trial court abused its discretion in admitting it because its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice or misleading the jury. West Bend argues that a bright-line rule regarding the admissibility of medical bills when the recovery of medical expenses is not sought is at odds with the Indiana Rules of Evidence and Indiana law. West Bend also argues that, not only is evidence of medical bills generally relevant to the question of pain and suffering, but also its probative value was not substantially outweighed in this case by a danger of unfair prejudice or misleading the jury.
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We begin by rejecting Gladstone’s argument that evidence of medical bills is never relevant to the question of pain and suffering. Common sense and experience dictate that a more serious injury generally brings with it greater medical expenses as well as greater pain and suffering….
… Because we conclude that evidence of medical bills will generally have some relevance to the amount of pain and suffering experienced by the patient, we decline Gladstone’s invitation to adopt a bright-line rule that evidence of medical bills is always inadmissible on relevance grounds when their recovery is not sought.
Having declined Gladstone’s invitation to adopt a bright-line rule, we conclude that West Bend has cleared the low bar for establishing the relevance of Gladstone’s medical bills in this case. If the bills are low, as Gladstone apparently considers them to be, then they tend to establish that he has not experienced extensive pain and suffering from his injuries, and that is all that Evidence Rule 401 requires. We acknowledge that there are cases in which low medical bills may not accurately reflect the amount of pain and suffering experienced, but that does not mean that evidence of medical bills is irrelevant. If, in the estimation of one of the parties, the amount of the medical bills does not accurately reflect the amount of pain and suffering, that party is free to counter it with other evidence and argument, as Gladstone did in this case.
Even though evidence of medical expenses is generally relevant to the question of pain and suffering, it may still be excluded in a particular case if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence. Gladstone contends that even if evidence of his medical expenses had some relevance to the question of pain and suffering, the jury was improperly led by his relatively low medical bills to incorrectly conclude that he had experienced minimal pain and suffering.
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We conclude that Gladstone has failed to establish the danger of unfair prejudice of juror confusion substantially outweighed the relevance of his medical bills in this case. Gladstone’s trial strategy was to convince the jury that his medical bills were not an accurate reflection of his degree of pain and suffering, a strategy which was fully developed at trial: Gladstone’s medical expert opined that Gladstone has chronic osteoarthritis that he is likely to suffer from the rest of his life, while Gladstone and his mother both testified that he still suffered from pain caused by the accident and could not participate in certain activities. While the jury may not have credited this evidence, Gladstone has not established any danger that the jury was unable to grasp Gladstone’s theory of the case or that its verdict was the result of confusion. [Footnote omitted.]
In the end, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of Gladstone’s medical bills, even though he did not seek recovery of medical expenses. While it is, of course, possible to imagine a case in which we might conclude that a trial court’s admission of medical expenses was an abuse of discretion, this is not one of those cases. The weight such evidence is to be given is generally for the attorneys to argue and the jury to decide… In conclusion, we decline Gladstone’s invitation to create a bright-line rule that evidence of medical bills is never admissible in cases where they are not sought and further conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting such evidence in this case. [Footnote omitted.]
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Conclusion
We decline Gladstone’s invitation to adopt a bright-line rule that evidence of medical expenses is never admissible in cases where their recovery is not sought. We further conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of Gladstone’s medical expenses in this case. Finally, we conclude that Gladstone has waived his arguments that the admission of testimony regarding settlement negotiations and insurance payments entitle him to a new trial
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
May, J., and Vaidik, J., concur.