Milad Demetry was the president and principal actor for both plaintiffs Errands and its successor company American Angel Transportation Inc..

In 2012, Errands entered into a business relationship with Wayne Walz , wherein Errands would transport individuals claiming workers’ compensation benefits to and from their medical appointments. In 2013, American Angel Transportation Inc., effectively became the successor of Errands, with respect to its business dealings with Walz.

According to the written contracts with Walz, titled the “Billing & Collections Agreement.” Walz was responsible for negotiating and securing payments from the workers’ compensation insurers (or their third party administrators) connected to the applicants transported by plaintiffs. Walz was to be paid 20 percent of the actual payments collected for the transportation companies.

The companies provided transportation services to applicants based upon requests by Waltz, typically ranging between 10 to 50 requests per day. Insurers would issue payment checks naming the transportation companies as payees, but would deliver them to Walz’s office. Demetry, as president of the transportation companies, would periodically go to his office to collect the payment checks and simultaneously pay 20 percent of the amounts received.

The transportation companies filed their lawsuits against Walz as well as individual doctors, alleging seven causes of action. They alleged that because of Waltz conduct and omissions, over $1.2 million in billed trips went unpaid by insurers and became uncollectible.

Their argument at trial focused on a theory that defendant had breached the Agreements by failing to obtain authorizations for plaintiffs’ trips ahead of time from insurers and by failing to file liens at the WCAB so that plaintiffs’ rights to payment for their billed trips could be formally adjudicated by the WCAB in the event an insurer refused to pay.

The evidence at trial was insufficient to show causation, as the trial judge reasoned that many bills were paid without having obtained prior authorization or filing liens before the WCAB. There was thus no direct evidence that failure to obtain prior authorization or file a lien resulted in loss of the payment in every transportation event, since some were paid and some were not. The plaintiffs were provided an opportunity to provide evidence showing a link between the failures, and the non payment on a bill by bill basis, and they could not.

Thus the trial court entered judgment in favor of Wayne Walz, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in the unpublished case of America Angel Transportation Inc. v Wayne Walz.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the “Plaintiffs have not carried their burden to demonstrate reversible error under a substantial evidence standard of review.”