PERSONAL INJURY | CAR ACCIDENTS | FUTURE MEDICAL EXPENSES | REMITTITUR | FLORIDA LAW UPDATE
A Florida appeals court upheld a trial judge’s decision to cut a $2 million future medical expenses award down to about $1.27 million, offering a clear lesson on how future medical damages must be proven with real evidence — not speculation.
Published: September 28, 2026
Case: Bassett v. Morine, No. 2D2024-2283
Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District
Decision Date: May 29, 2026.
The Applicable Law
If you’re injured in a car accident in Florida and win a jury verdict, that verdict isn’t necessarily the final word on your damages. Florida Statute section 768.043 gives trial judges an affirmative duty to review money damages awarded in personal injury cases arising from car accidents. The statute says the court must determine “if such amount is clearly excessive or inadequate in light of the facts and circumstances which were presented to the trier of fact,” and if it is, the judge “shall order a remittitur or additur, as the case may be.”
Remittitur means a judge reduces a jury’s damages award because the evidence doesn’t support the amount awarded. This isn’t the same as a judge second-guessing whether any evidence exists to support a verdict — that’s a different, more deferential standard used for motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Instead, when it comes to future medical expenses specifically, Florida courts have long required something more precise. The core rule here is that a plaintiff must prove future medical expenses with reasonable certainty, meaning the record must contain evidence from which a jury could logically calculate the amount, not just guess at it.
What Happened in This Case
According to the facts described in the opinion, the plaintiff sued the defendant for negligence after a car accident. She testified that the crash injured her neck, limiting her range of motion and causing ongoing pain. As part of her treatment, she underwent a combination of procedures the court called “medial branch blocks” and “radiofrequency ablations” — described in the opinion as diagnostic injections paired with a heat-based nerve treatment used to reduce pain, which the court referred to collectively as “the treatments.”
The evidence described in the court’s opinion showed that the plaintiff would likely need these treatments for the rest of her life, somewhere between every six months and every other year. The record included a billing statement from a treatment center showing that one round of the treatments actually cost the plaintiff $15,639.89. During closing argument, her own attorney told the jury the cost was “just over $15,000” per round. Her life care plan, based on a life expectancy of “another 57.2 years,” put the present value of future treatment costs (using just one round) at $380,132.
The jury nonetheless awarded $2,000,000 for future medical expenses. The defendant moved for remittitur or a new trial, and the trial court agreed the award was excessive. The trial judge multiplied the documented $15,639.89 per-round cost by 57.2 years, added the life care plan’s present value, and reduced the future medical expenses award to $1,274,433.71. The plaintiff rejected the remittitur and appealed, while the defendant cross-appealed.
The Court’s Analysis
The BioSpine Estimate Didn’t Support a Higher Per-Treatment Cost
On appeal, the plaintiff argued that another jointly admitted medical record — an estimate from a treatment provider referred to as “BioSpine” — listed an “approximate cost” of “$35,000 to $45,000” for the treatments. She argued the jury could have read this as a per-treatment cost, which, multiplied over her lifetime, would justify (or even exceed) the $2 million verdict.
The Second District rejected this theory. The court pointed out that “[d]espite never having argued to the jury that one round of treatments would cost this much,” the plaintiff’s own trial counsel told the jury the treatments cost “just over $15,000” per round. The BioSpine document itself used terms like “per visit,” “per session,” and “per set” for other treatments on the same page, but not for the radiofrequency ablations — which the court found telling. As the opinion explained, the treatments were “described in a manner that suggests a global amount: ‘Radiofrequency ablations- approximate cost of $35,000 to $45,000.'”
The court also noted the timing problem: the BioSpine report was prepared while the treating physician still anticipated the plaintiff would only need the treatments for one to two years, not for the rest of her life. This case shows that courts will look closely at when and how a damages estimate was created, not just what a document says in isolation. No witness at trial ever testified that a single round of treatment cost $35,000 to $45,000, and the plaintiff’s own economic expert appeared to rely on the $15,639.89 figure — the actual, documented past cost — when calculating the present value of future care.
Reasonable Certainty, Not Speculation, Is the Standard
The court emphasized a long-standing rule from Florida law: “In a personal injury action in which the plaintiff seeks damages for future medical expenses, ‘only medical expenses which are reasonably certain to be incurred in the future are recoverable.'” Truelove v. Blount, 954 So. 2d 1284, 1287 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007) (quoting Loftin v. Wilson, 67 So. 2d 185, 188 (Fla. 1953)). There must be “evidence in the record from which the jury could, with reasonable certainty, determine the amount of medical expense” a plaintiff is likely to incur going forward.
The court explained that pointing to a single ambiguous document — one that no witness relied on, that conflicted with other evidence, and that trial counsel never even mentioned to the jury — doesn’t meet that standard. As the opinion put it, the “theoretical possibility that the jury might have seized upon that one document to reach a sum that far exceeded any other relevant evidence… does not indicate that the jury award bears a reasonable relation” to the damages actually proven.
Remittitur Review Is More Demanding Than a Simple “Some Evidence” Check
Importantly, the court clarified that reviewing a verdict for remittitur is not the same low bar used when deciding whether “any” evidence supports a verdict. Citing Arias v. Porter, 276 So. 3d 49, 54 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019), the court explained that this analysis “involves a sense of touch that can be delivered only by the trial judge that heard and saw the evidence,” and appellate courts will only reverse “where the trial court has made a decision that fails the test of reasonableness.” This distinction matters because it means judges have real authority to correct jury awards that outpace the actual evidence, even when some scrap of paper in the record could theoretically be stretched to support a bigger number.
Because the trial court’s math — multiplying the documented per-treatment cost by the plaintiff’s life expectancy and adding the life care plan’s present value — was grounded in actual trial evidence, the Second District held the trial judge did not abuse his discretion. The remittitur to $1,274,433.71 was affirmed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this mean the plaintiff lost her case?
No. The plaintiff won her negligence case at trial, and the jury found in her favor. This appeal was only about the size of one part of the damages award — future medical expenses. She still keeps the remitted award of $1,274,433.71 for that category, plus whatever else the jury awarded for other damages, unless she chooses to pursue a new trial on damages instead.
What is remittitur, and can it happen to my verdict?
Remittitur is when a judge reduces a jury’s damage award because the evidence doesn’t support the full amount. In Florida car accident cases, judges are required by statute to review damages awards for exactly this kind of excessiveness. It’s a tool defense attorneys frequently use after a plaintiff’s verdict, so understanding how it works matters if you’re pursuing a personal injury claim.
How do I prove future medical expenses in a Florida injury case?
Florida law requires “reasonable certainty” — meaning your medical experts, treating physicians, and documented costs need to clearly connect to the amount you’re asking the jury to award. Vague estimates, ambiguous documents, or numbers your own attorney doesn’t rely on in closing argument can create real problems later, even if you win at trial.
Why did the court focus so much on one medical billing document?
Because in personal injury litigation, the specific wording and context of medical records can make or break a damages claim. This case shows how courts scrutinize whether a cost figure represents a single treatment or a total cost over time, and how the timing of when a document was created can affect its reliability as evidence.
What should I take away from this case if I’m building my own injury claim?
Consistency between your expert testimony, your medical records, and your attorney’s arguments to the jury is critical. Courts have held that damages awards need to logically trace back to evidence actually presented at trial — not just to the highest number that could theoretically be found somewhere in the file.
Cases involving future medical expenses can get complicated fast, especially when they involve ongoing treatments, life care plans, and competing expert opinions. If you’ve been injured in a car accident and are trying to figure out what your claim for future medical care is really worth, having experienced counsel who knows how to build a clear, well-documented record can make all the difference between a verdict that holds up and one that gets reduced on appeal.
Contact Maderal Byrne & Furst PLLC today for a free consultation.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This blog post is provided for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The law is subject to change, and the application of legal principles varies depending on the specific facts of each case. If you have questions about your specific situation, you should consult a licensed Florida attorney. This post discusses legal concepts and principles addressed in the cited court opinion and context of that opinion. It is not intended to make any assertions about the truth of any allegations or evidence relating to any party to that case.
Case Reference
Bassett v. Morine, No. 2D2024-2283 (Fla. 2d DCA May 29, 2026). Appeal from the Circuit Court for Sarasota County.
Applicable Statute
- § 768.043, Fla. Stat. (2023)
Citations & Sources
- Bassett v. Morine, No. 2D2024-2283 (Fla. 2d DCA May 29, 2026)
- GEICO Indem. Co. v. DeGrandchamp, 102 So. 3d 685 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012)
- Truelove v. Blount, 954 So. 2d 1284 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007)
- Aills v. Boemi, 41 So. 3d 1022 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010)
- Normius v. Eckerd Corp., 813 So. 2d 985 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002)
- Loftin v. Wilson, 67 So. 2d 185 (Fla. 1953)
- DeAlmeida v. Graham, 524 So. 2d 666 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987)
- Walt Disney World Co. v. Blalock, 640 So. 2d 1156 (Fla. 5th DCA 1994)
- Alterra Healthcare Corp. v. Campbell, 78 So. 3d 595 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011)
- Mulvey v. Stephens, 250 So. 3d 106 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018)
- Arias v. Porter, 276 So. 3d 49 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019)
- Azoulay v. Condo. Ass’n of La Mer Ests., 94 So. 3d 686 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012)
- Pruitt v. Perez-Gervert, 41 So. 3d 286 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010)
- Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197 (Fla. 1980)
- Sukraj v. Phoeung, 241 So. 3d 911 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018)
Source: https://flcourts-media.flcourts.gov/content/download/2489388/opinion/Opinion_2024-2283.pdf
