A paraplegic former Marine from Westminster was awarded more than $19 million in punitive damages in his lawsuit against an insurance company that denied him full coverage while hospitalized after breaking a leg, his attorney said.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated less than two hours before finding in favor of 57-year-old Thomas Nickerson, who sued Stonebridge Life Insurance Co. for breach of contract in January 2009.
The same jury previously awarded Nickerson more than $65,000 in compensatory damages, most of it for emotional distress.
Nickerson's lawyer, William Shernoff, said Stonebridge would only pay the former Marine for 19 of 109 days he spent in a Veterans Administration hospital in Long Beach after falling from his wheelchair and breaking his right leg in February 2008.
Shernoff said insurance companies should not be able to overrule the expertise of treating physicians in determining benefits.
Stonebridge attorney James Wood could not be immediately reached. However, in their court papers, lawyers for Stonebridge stated the payment of benefits for 19 days was "according to the terms of the policy and the circumstances of the hospitalization."
