HOUSTON - A Houston-area chiropractic group that last year defeated racketeering allegations by an insurance company is now suing a personal injury law firm that sends clients its way.
1st Choice Accident & Injury and related companies sued Daniel, Williams & Associates in Harris County District Court on Jan. 8, wondering where their share of settlements and judgments is. The law firm is comprised of partners Kathryn Williams and Helen Daniel Holman, whose personal injury work includes car accidents and slip-and-falls.
1st Choice says it has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to the firm's clients with the promise it would be repaid from whatever was recovered.
"Defendant distributed the proceeds of those settlements and judgments to themselves and their clients," the complaint says.
"However, despite the promises made to Plaintiffs by Defendants in the (Letters of Protection) to promptly pay Plaintiffs out of any recovery realized from Defendant's clients' personal injury cases, no such payments have been made."
1st Choice says it has tried to contact DWA but has been unable to resolve the issue. The suit seeks an accounting of each patient's claim, with a six-page exhibit of billing records attached.
According to the complaint, 1st Choice has provided $341,570 in treatment, Country Wide Urgent Care's bill is $16,825, Celebrity Spine & Joint is owed $48,000, Origin MRI & Diagnostics' tally is $157,500, ProHealth is charging $36,050 and Origin Spin Institute claims $20,400.
Added up, 1st Choice suit seeks $660,345. The plaintiffs are represented by Phebian Adekunle-Ajayi and others at JCJ Law Group in Texas.
The company is currently litigating an appeal from Farmers Insurance 21st Century Centennial in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Farmers was on the wrong end of a ruling last year in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, as it tried to allege a racketeering scheme involving 1st Choice, Houston Pain Relief & Wellness Clinic and Smart Choice Chiropractic, plus others.
Farmers and other plaintiffs alleged fraudulent billing for services not needed led to more than $14 million in damages and filed a lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 2022.
"(T)he amended complaint is devoid of any allegations that the chiropractic clinics, pain management companies, and medical professionals named as Defendants existed separate and apart from the alleged pattern of racketeering," U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison wrote March 12.
District Judge George Hanks adopted Edison's report and recommendations two weeks later over objections by the plaintiffs.
"The memorandum incorrectly states that items are conclusory when, in reality, Plaintiffs give very specific factual allegations and examples of the parties working together," the objections say.
"The amended complaint alleges control, the participation of each defendant, the relationship and the actions by each defendant that establishes a continuing unit."
The alleged scheme involves treatment for drivers involved in car accidents.
That treatment includes fraudulent exam reports, fraudulent billing and medical reports and the supply of those reports to personal injury lawyers, the suit says.
“The Defendants’ scheme is designed to enrich Defendants by inducing Farmers to rely on their bills and supporting documentation that on their face purport to substantiate the need for medical treatment and (2) settle BI and UM Claims within policy limits, and often for all or most of the limits, to protect Farmers and their insureds from potential judgments exceeding policy limits and/or avoid potential liability for bad-faith claims,” the suit says.