Entrepreneur,
attorney, and businessman, John H. Ruiz, is the Founder and CEO of MSP
Recovery, the country’s healthcare reimbursement recovery leader. The
data-analytics and technology company recently became publicly-traded
(“MSPR”)—the second largest SPAC transaction in the U.S., with a value of $32.6
billion. Mr. Ruiz innovated and designed the business and IT platforms at MSP
Recovery, which the nation’s largest healthcare organizations rely upon to
maximize their recoveries.
John H.
Ruiz also leads the legal recovery strategies as the Founder of MSP Recovery
Law Firm. He is nationally recognized as one of America’s pre-eminent trial
lawyers for his accomplishments in healthcare law. Among his countless awards,
he is honored annually as one of Lawyers of Distinction’s “Power Lawyers”. He
was also named “2019’s DBR Florida Trailblazer”, for his groundbreaking work in
integrating data analytics into the practice of law, and for the positive
impact it’s having on healthcare recoveries across the mainland U.S. and Puerto
Rico. Over the course of his distinguished 30 year legal career, Mr. Ruiz has
also gained national recognition in class action, mass tort litigation, MDL
consolidated cases, medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury,
real estate, and aviation disaster cases.
Mr. Ruiz
led the legal team in the landmark win handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit, in “MSP Recovery Claims versus Ace American Insurance
Co”. In addition, he has certified more than 100 class actions and participated
in three federal appellate court decisions: (1) Humana v. Western Heritage, 832
F.3d 1229 (11th Cir. 2016); (2) MSP Recovery v. Allstate, 835 F.3d 1351 (11th
Cir. 2016); and (3) MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Kingsway Amigo Ins. Co., No. 18-14980,
2020 WL 728625 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2020).
He has
been involved as counsel in cases that have totaled more than $20 billion in
settlements. These class actions resulted in some of the largest awards in
Florida against major insurance companies such as Allstate, Progressive, State
Farm, and Geico. The Geico case alone resulted in the settlement of over 80
million dollars of reduced claims. In total, Mr. Ruiz has single-handedly
certified class actions against all major car insurers in the state of Florida,
resulting in the current and potential redistribution of billions of dollars in
improperly paid claims spanning a period of more than 10 years.
His
successful career is distinguished by an unprecedented number of favorable
results against companies like American Home Products (Fen Phen), Bayer
Corporation (Baycol), Merck Pharmaceuticals (Vioxx), Shell, Toyota, Conagra
Foods- Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and Chalk’s International Airlines.
Starting
as early as 1996, Mr. Ruiz filed class-action lawsuits on behalf of more than
30,000 Miami-Dade County residents against the Florida Department of
Agriculture for trespassing onto the private properties of homeowners and
chopping down their citrus trees without any compensation. The case was
ultimately certified and the Department of Agriculture directly compensated all
members of the aggrieved class.
In 2001,
he represented frustrated consumers in a class action lawsuit against Firestone
for the poorly designed and manufactured tires that resulted in 63 fatalities
and thousands of serious blowouts. Mr. Ruiz was also hired as local counsel by
numerous out of state law firms that had pending cases in Florida courts. The
cases in aggregate settled for more than 30 million dollars.
Four years
later, he represented the families of crash victims in a wrongful death suit
against Chalk’s International Ocean Airway. Mr. Ruiz was the first lawyer to file
a limited fund class action. The case settled within 60 days of the lawsuit for
a confidential agreed amount. The Miami Herald and other media outlets reported
that the case settled for 51 million dollars. The survivors of those who passed
away in the accident collected within 364 days after the date of accident,
which is unprecedented. Mr. Ruiz has also handled more than 225 appeals, which
include arguing before the Florida Supreme Court. He has also been involved in
hundreds of arbitration cases that resulted in substantial monetary awards.
John H.
Ruiz prides himself on hard work and perseverance, lessons taught to him by his
mother and father, Nelida and Emeterio Ruiz, Cuban immigrants who came to this
country with nothing but the hope of giving their kids a better life. And that,
they did!Coming from those humble beginnings in Miami gave Mr. Ruiz the
motivation to beat the odds and make his parents proud. He went on to be the
first in his family to attend college and law school, built a hugely successful
legal practice, and blazed a new trail in data-analytics and healthcare.
That drive
continues today as he paves a new road, setting the same kind of example for
his three children, that his parents set for him. Mr. Ruiz dedicates himself
daily to beating a different set of odds, going up against the largest primary
payers and auto insurers in the country, to secure financial reimbursements and
innovate life-saving technology for healthcare payers, providers and their
patients.