Client Refused Surgery, but Carter Mario Still Secured $337,433 UIM Settlement

Joshua Jeudy was injured in a three-car collision in Connecticut, a crash that left him with injuries serious enough to warrant a surgical recommendation. He declined to go under the knife. That decision gave the defense a ready-made argument: if the plaintiff would not have surgery, how severe could his condition really be?

The at-fault driver's coverage fell short of Jeudy's losses, so the case moved to a claim against his own underinsured motorist policy. Attorney Melissa Brescia of Carter Mario Injury Lawyers took on the assignment of demonstrating that the insurer owed its policyholder full compensation despite the gap between what the underlying coverage paid and what the injuries were worth.

Brescia's central argument was straightforward: Jeudy's refusal of surgery did not mean he would never need it. When the insurer asked why it should pay for a procedure the plaintiff had not undergone, she countered that the medically recommended surgery still had to be treated as a probable future cost. It's a matter of if, not when, she told them, keeping the focus on the medical record and Jeudy's documented functional limitations to counter the insurer's position that the absence of surgery undercut his damages.

The case resolved in a settlement of $337,433. The figure accounts for both the injuries Jeudy had already suffered and the likelihood that surgical intervention remained in his future, a forward-looking damages theory that the insurer ultimately accepted rather than litigate.

The settlement was reported in the Connecticut Law Tribune on March 4, 2025.