One-year back and third-party service providers

In Verbeke v. Innovative Rehabilitaton Systems, Allstate used the one-year back rule to take advantage of medical service providers.

  Verbeke was badly injured in a motor vehicle collision and ultimately had to sue his PIP provider, Allstate, to force it to pay his bills.  Allstate compromised that claim in April, 2004, but within months the Plaintiff was forced to sue Allstate again for unpaid bills that were approaching the one-year back deadline.  Eventually, the case focused solely on billings of Innovative, and Innovative sought leave to join the action.  The court allowed Innovative to join and the injured Verbeke to withdraw from the case.

   The Court held that Innovative could not pursue the action because it did not sue Allstate within one year--even though the injured Verbeke did sue over the same expenses within twelve months--and even though Allstate had agreed to waive all "technical defects" in any action by Innovative.