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De Niro: You Sued Me Because I Had Cancer

Posted May 18th 2007 8:22PM by TMZ Staff

Oscar winner Robert De Niro has filed a motion against Fireman's Fund Insurance to dismiss a suit the company filed against him in 2006. De Niro's rep Stan Rosenfield tells TMZ "This was filed in response to Fireman's Fund's decision to sue Robert De Niro because he was diagnosed with cancer."

According to the motion, filed today in a U.S. federal court, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October 2003. The documents say that when he was diagnosed, De Niro was days away from starting work on the film "Hide and Seek." Because of De Niro's diagnosis and subsequent treatment for his illness, he was unavailable to start working on the movie as scheduled, and shooting was held up almost 60 days. Due to this delay, Fireman's Fund, the insurance carrier on the film, paid over $1.8 million to reimburse the studio for its lost costs. In October of 2006, Fireman's Fund filed suit against De Niro, claiming he misrepresented the state of his health on a medical certificate they issued him for the film.

De Niro claims that he was diagnosed on October 15, 2003 after undergoing a prostate biopsy on the 10th. The medical certificate filed with the insurance company was dated two days earlier, on October 13. Fireman's Fund acknowledges in their suit against the actor that he had not yet "been diagnosed with or treated for" prostate cancer, but they decided to sue him anyway. De Niro, in today's motion, says there was no way he misrepresented his health on the certificate because he hadn't yet been diagnosed with cancer.

De Niro is asking the court to immediately dismiss the lawsuit against him.

A call to Fireman's Fund was not immediately returned.

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31. You mean to tell me that even though he was not diagnosed with prostate cancer until 2 whole days after he signed the medical certificate that he had no idea that he might have prostate cancer at that time. Give me a break! No one who knows anything about the nature of a prostate biopsy would suggest that they are done randomly, at the spur of the moment, just 'cuz you feel like it. I don't care if he is Robert DeNiro, or John Doe from down the block, if you knowingly sign something saying there is nothing wrong with your health, and 2 days later have a biopsy, you are guilty of material misrepresentation. That would be like signing up for auto insurance as you are driving through a red light towards another car. Insurance is not designed to pay for things that you know are going to happen. Fraud and material misrepresentation are a big part of what drives up the cost of all types of insurance. I say let DeNiro serve as an example. He is not being sued because he had cancer. He is being sued because he signed a medical certificate knowing there was a good chance he had cancer.

Posted at 1:30PM on May 21st 2007 by Think about it!

32. Some facts re: Prostate Biopsy [Source: Wikipedia]

Prostate biopsy is a procedure in which small samples are removed from a man's prostate gland to be tested for the presence of cancer. It is typically performed when the scores from a PSA blood test rise to a level that is associated with the possible presence of prostate cancer.

The procedure requires a local anesthetic, with fifty-five percent of men reporting discomfort during the biopsy.[1] The main usual complication is light bleeding in the urine, stool and ejaculate for a short time (days) afterwards.

The procedure is traditionally done with tactile finger guidance. [2] Ultrasound guided prostate biopsy is has now become the gold standard.

In other words, two days before signing a medical form which specifically asks about issues involving treatment and diagnosis of prostate issues, Mr. DeNiro had someone's "tactile guidance" wandering around in his backside. The first step in treatment of a disease, common sense would tell you, is to find out if it exists. Since there must have been some reason to go through the procedure, the argument for DeNiro seems to contemplate the type of hyper technicality which insurance companies are accused of using not to pay claims. The fact of the matter is that the claim WAS paid and just like when your car insurance takes care of your claims, it then has the right to go after the person who is the actual cause of the loss.

Posted at 4:46PM on May 25th 2007 by SeeThree

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