No Damage, No Case or Controversy, No Right to Sue in Federal Court: Assignee has no more Right to Sue than Assignor.

• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Zalma, Barry

No fault insurance was designed to save insurers and insureds money by removing automobile accident damages from the tort law system. Like all seemingly good ideas the no fault insurance systems, like Florida's PIP system, were victims of the law of unintended consequences. One of those unintended consequences was the proclivity of health care providers to take assignments of the claims of the patients and then litigating to seek benefits plus tort damages. Often they succeeded. In the case that follows they forgot to sue for a case or controversy.

In A&M Gerber Chiropractic LLC, As Assignee Of Conor Carruthers, On Behalf Of Itself And All Others Similarly Situated v. GEICO General Insurance Company, No. 17-15606, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (April 19, 2019) a chiropractor took an assignment from a patient, Conor Carruthers, who was involved in a car accident after which he sought medical services from A&M Gerber Chiropractic LLC.

At the time, Carruthers was covered under an automobile insurance policy issued by GEICO General Insurance Company. Pursuant to Florida's Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law, the policy provided him with $10,000 in personal injury protection (PIP) benefits. To be entitled to the full $10,000, however, the statute required that Carruthers--like all PIP beneficiaries--be diagnosed by an...