Case Name: Richard C. HILLEBRANDT v. HOLSUM BAKERIES, INC. and Travelers Insurance Company
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1972-04-04
Citations: 267 So. 2d 608
Docket Number: No. 4974
Parties: Richard C. HILLEBRANDT v. HOLSUM BAKERIES, INC. and Travelers Insurance Company.
Judges: Before REDMANN, LEMMON and BAILES, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 267
Pages: 608–610

Head Matter:
Richard C. HILLEBRANDT v. HOLSUM BAKERIES, INC. and Travelers Insurance Company.
No. 4974.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
April 4, 1972.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 17, 1972.
Harold J. Lamy, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellee.
R. Henry Sarpy, Jr., New Orleans, for defendants-appellants.
Before REDMANN, LEMMON and BAILES, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
Defendant appeals as to quantum only in this automobile damage and personal injury action.
The trial court awarded $2,700 for three months' lost wages, $1,088 doctor's bill, and $2,500 general damages. The trial court awarded the entire doctor's bill despite its expressed opinion (supported by another physician's emphatic opinion) that the treatment and charges were excessive.
Following the April 7, 1969 accident, plaintiff consulted a general practitioner, Dr. Harry Philibert, for treatment of cervical and lumbar sprain. Over the next three months he was given some 58 "diapulse" thermal treatments and over 40 injections of lidocaine and hydrocortisone at spinal sites. On his doctor's advice and because of the strenuous nature of his duties as a stevedoring foreman he did not return to work until July 7, 1969, three months after the accident.
Following his return to work, he was examined monthly in July, August and September, and given 12 additional injections. He returned for a final visit the following January because of a flare-up and received four more injections.
Defendant's whole position is that the treating physician's excessive treatment of a minor shake-up (of which defendant's expert, Dr. George Battalora, Jr., found no objective symptoms six weeks after the accident) has caused inflation of general damages and lost wages as well as medical cost.
Obviously the trial judge accepted Dr. Battalora's testimony that Dr. Philibert's diapulse treatments charged at $590 and injections charged at $270 were "gross overtreatment" of plaintiff's mild cervical and lumbar sprain.
However, a tortfeasor can hardly be allowed to select the tort victim's doctor, and in the absence of proof of fraud on the treating doctor's part such as would assure the victim's not having to pay the bill, he would have to pay if, and it was caused by the tort. We conclude it is a proper element of damage.
As to the loss of wages and general damages, there is no showing that plaintiff was malingering. His doctor and defendant's doctor disagreed on his condition, and plaintiff personally did not feel well enough to be anxious to return to work. His doctor's view was that he should not be obliged to return to work during three months, and the trial judge found as a fact a three month period of disability.
The $2,500 general damages is in our opinion within the trial judge's "much discretion," C.C. art. 1934, subd. 3, for mild cervical and lumbar sprain, with severe headache and cervical and lumbar muscle spasm, with some momentary discomfort in certain neck positions six weeks after the accident, a total period of disability of three months, a period of some discomfort after returning to work, and a flare-up as late as nine months after the accident.
The judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.