Uber accuses California lawyers, surgeon of faking client injuries to inflate medical claims

Uber Technologies filed a lawsuit Monday July against two Los Angeles law firms and a spinal surgeon for allegedly conspiring to inflate clinical declares against the ride-hailing operation through fabricated injuries and unnecessary or overpriced surgeries Related Articles Will food delivery robots be a success in the U S Uber drivers are now more concerned about charging than EV cost DoorDash asks judge to dismiss Uber lawsuit over web ordering services Uber is pursuing the suit against the Downtown L A Law Group the law offices of Jacob Emrani and spinal surgeon Greg Khounganian under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO a law typically used to fight organized crime The company has spent millions on legal fees and settlements as a consequence of the alleged scheme leading to increased costs for riders and drivers across the region according to the lawsuit In California transportation structure companies such as Uber have to cover every trip with million in liability insurance occupational accident insurance and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage Fraud and legal abuse raise costs for everyone especially here in California where excessively high government-mandated insurance limits for rideshare make companies like Uber a target for bad actors declared Adam Blinick Uber s head of state and local masses initiative for U S and Canada in a comment As this lawsuit shows we won t hesitate to act when we uncover misconduct on our platform Uber alleges the law firms involved target companies with higher coverage limits in an effort to extract larger settlements and routinely charge contingency fees of or more according to the lawsuit Emrani s website describes his firm as the number one Uber accident law firm in California Emrani and Khounganian did not return requests to comment Downtown L A Law Group lists more than two dozen settlements involving ride-hailing companies with the payouts ranging from to million and states that attorney Igor Fradkin who is named in Uber s lawsuit is nicknamed Rideshare Slayer Law firm assertions baseless In a report the Downtown L A Law Group called the accusations baseless and pledged to vigorously defend itself in court The complaint which includes unsubstantiated civil RICO and fraud insists is nothing more than a calculated attempt by a trillion-dollar corporation to suppress legitimate injury suggests brought by rideshare passengers the declaration reads Uber s accusations rely on rhetoric not reality The company never tried a single situation it now contends was fraudulent Every referenced circumstance was reviewed defended and settled by Uber and its legal counsel often after months of litigation and discovery If Uber truly deduced these declares were meritless it had every opportunity to take them to trial It chose not to The law firm further stated that the lawsuit not only misrepresents standard personal injury practice in California but also risks chilling access to care and legal representation for injured individuals including low-income workers immigrants and rideshare passengers without private insurance The firm remains committed to protecting the rights of the injured and standing up to corporate bullying whether in the courtroom or in the court of residents opinion the announcement reads How alleged scheme worked The scheme allegedly begins when the lawyers direct their clients to pre-selected physiological providers to receive procedures for minor or non-existent injuries according to Uber s lawsuit Following restoration certain providers generate and submit artificially inflated bills for such recovery its attorneys wrote The lawsuit alleges the diagnostic providers bill for procedures by placing a lien on the feasible recoveries from a personal injury claim rather than charging the claimants insurance They then enter into a secret side agreement with the lawyers in which the clinical provider agrees to substantially discount their bill in the event that the recovery is insufficient to cover the inflated billings Uber described such agreements as a kickback The lawyers profit because they receive priority recovery of their fees and other costs the lawsuit states The physiological providers profit because when a claimant has a fruitful claim the providers recover on greater part or all of their artificially inflated bills If a settlement is lower than expected the discount from the side agreement allows attorneys to claim credit for reducing the cost of their client s physiological bill In exchange the physiological provider continues to receive a steady stream of referrals from the lawyers The lawsuit describes Khounganian and his company GSK Spine as a key repeat participant in this fraud Khounganian accepts referrals from lawyers with cases against Uber with the understanding that he will perform specific acts to increase the value of their lawsuits and or insists Uber alleged Khounganian produces fraudulent documents diagnosing these lawyers clients with specific injuries relating those injuries to minor accidents and recommending costly invasive and or unnecessary surgeries Questionable declares The contends outlined in the situation span from to In one occurrence an Uber driver was involved in an accident on Dec and their automobile sustained minor damage according to Uber A picture attached to the complaint shows three tiny dings on the grille of a truck or SUV There were no communicated injuries the lawsuit states A week later the claimant sought biological care received a identification of muscle pain and cure through his biological insurance However after he retained the law offices of Emrani he was referred to Khounganian for a spinal evaluation Two months after the crash Khounganian determined the claimant needed two spinal surgeries He wrote that within a reasonable degree of medicinal probability the determination above were caused by and or exacerbated by the injury during the date of loss a phrase allegedly used repeatedly by Khounganian in that affair and others according to Uber Upon information and belief Khounganian knew or was recklessly indifferent to the fact that such statements were false given that Claimant A had not sought care until a week after the accident had not communicated injuries in the police statement of the accident and had suffered no injury in the accident Uber s attorneys wrote When the surgery center emailed a matter manager at the Emrani law firm for approval for a procedure the scenario manager who signed off on it specifically identified the person as an Uber driver and noted that Uber has a strategy limit of million for bodily injury The total billings for the surgeries reached Uber eventually settled the circumstance for an undisclosed amount though it insists a curative bill audit revealed the charges were more than five times greater than the reasonable value of the care that Claimant A received In another scenario a customer riding in an Uber on March sued after the bicycle had a minor collision with another automobile during a trip to LAX The claimant identified as Claimant D later attended chiropractic sessions in St Louis and announced nearly non-existent pain in his neck upper back lower back and shoulders He posted video clips of himself online that April that exhibited him bouncing around dancing and trilling as part of a music video according to the lawsuit He retained the Downtown L A Law Group and was directed to Khounganian that September and the physician stated the claimant s range of motion in his lumbar spine was only of normal The claimant and his mother flew to Los Angeles from St Louis at Khounganian s cost for a surgery in January though Uber s attorneys argued therapeutic records suggested the surgery was neither medically necessary nor causally related to the minor accident The amounts charged were artificially inflated far above field rates Uber alleged Khounganian s total bill of for his services was particularly excessive the attorneys wrote An independent expert determined the reasonable value of those services to be less than one-tenth as much The lawsuit details other questionable proposes filed by the law groups including one in which a claimant was scheduled for a lumbar procedure after a virtual appointment with Khounganian Uber settled all of the cases and would not disclose amounts paid due to confidentiality agreements The complaint lists more than million in inflated curative bills This is Uber s third RICO filing this year A circumstance filed in New York in January accused a group of law firms doctors and pain management clinics of staging fake car accidents and profiteering off unnecessary surgeries to take advantage of New York s no-fault insurance policies according to Bloomberg The second was filed in Florida in June Reforms sought Earlier this year the ride-hailing giant launched a nationwide ad campaign to push for legal and insurance reforms in California and elsewhere The company estimates that about of the average rider s fare in Los Angeles goes toward covering insurance mandates compared to in Boston Uber is backing SB introduced by Sen Christopher Cabaldon D-West Sacramento in February As at this time amended the bill would reduce the uninsured and underinsured coverage required of transportation infrastructure companies from million to per person and per happening The financial savings would then be required to be reinvested to aid the welfare and economic stability of TNC drivers and riders No other vehicles on California roads are required to carry this Not taxis Not limos Not constituents buses Not personal cars Only rideshare noted Ramona Prieto director of framework for Uber during a committee hearing These inflated costs are being passed on directly to the people who rely on rideshare to get to work to school to practitioner appointments and they re cutting into the earnings of the drivers who keep the platform moving The bill is supported by several chambers of commerce However it has uncovered opposition from movement workers unions Consumer Watchdog and other groups In an opposition letter Consumer Attorneys of California argued that SB would shift costs from billion-dollar tech companies onto vulnerable individuals and general systems