Entrepreneur, businessman, and attorney, John H. Ruiz, is the founder of the MSP Recovery Law Firm and MSP Recovery, the country’s fastest growing data analytics company and the nation’s leader in healthcare recoveries. 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 recovery potential.
John H. Ruiz is also the owner of the legendary boat manufacturer, Cigarette Racing Team, bringing technology and innovation to not just the iconic brand, but to the entire boating industry.
He is recognized as one of America’s pre-eminent trial lawyers. Among his countless awards, he was named one of Lawyers of Distinction’s “2020 Power Lawyers”, for his accomplishments in healthcare law. He was 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.
Recently, Mr. Ruiz led the legal strategy 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. He 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 for healthcare providers and millions of their patients.