Opinion ID: 1836674
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Use of Plaintiff's Medical History to Cast Doubt on Validity of Jury's Damage Award.

Text: Finally, we consider plaintiff's challenge to American Family's use of plaintiff's medical records and expert-witness testimony to show that the jury's damage award was an aberration. Plaintiff argues that this was an improper effort to relitigate the underlying tort claim in order to convince the jury in the bad-faith action that the jury in the personal-injury action had reached an unreasonable result. The verdict of the jury in the underlying tort litigation was a fait accompli for purposes of the bad-faith action. The issue was therefore not the reasonableness of the verdict, but rather, whether a verdict of that size should reasonably have been anticipated. In defending itself against plaintiff's claims that it should have been anticipated, American Family was entitled to produce evidence that militated against a recovery of that magnitude. We have considered all issues presented and conclude that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed. AFFIRMED. All justices concur except WIGGINS, J., who takes no part.