On March 30, 2011, PQA obtained final summary judgment on behalf of Allstate Insurance Company against a New Jersey chiropractor and a network of ten fraudulent medical offices he created and secretly controlled. The chiropractor created these sham medical corporations in response to the New Jersey Legislature’s adoption of the Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act (AICRA), P.L.1998 c.21., which sought to curb abuses by chiropractors and other healthcare providers. Finding that the chiropractor had engaged in a pattern of fraud as defined by the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act, NJSA 17:33A-1, et al. the Court awarded treble damages against the chiropractor personally in the amount of $9,770,126.13. New Jersey healthcare regulations prohibit chiropractors from employing medical doctors. In reaching his decision, the Honorable Robert J. Brennan, J.S.C. found that the chiropractor hired medical doctors to pose as owners of medical practices which the chiropractor in fact owned and controlled so that he could unlawfully profit from procedures they performed on his patients. Additionally, the Court found that the chiropractor illegally employed medical doctors to test patients and to recommend continued treatment by the chiropractor.
The motion was decided on remand from the Appellate Division following an earlier 2006 decision in Allstate’s favor by a different Morris County Superior Court judge. In addition to the judgment, the chiropractor will be required to pay additional damages in the amount of three times Allstate’s reasonably attorneys’ fees and costs. Kenneth Pringle Esq., Kathleen Waldron, Esq. and Denise O’Hara Esq. litigated the case, which began in 2002.
