You may hate tobacco lawsuits and lawyers who bring them. But you cannot help but agree that the tobacco industry is absolutely despicable. How the executives of the industry who lied to the country and the government for years can sleep is beyond me.
There are lots of people who agree, one group of them being the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon. This opinion affirms a significant punitive damage verdict against Phillip Morris.
Some excerpts:
Here is the latest on the Vioxx research controversy between certain certain scientists and the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Tennessean was kind enough to publish an op-ed piece I wrote. Here is the full article from today’s paper.
Health-care industry sells snake oil about malpractice
By JOHN A. DAY
A picture is worth a thousand words – or maybe more.
Click here to get access to a great list of websites that have videos and stills on a host of medical issues. Some of the sites are copyrighted, but at least you can look at the sites to educate yourself and, if you need to use the images for deposition, mediation or trial, know where you can purchase the images you need.
Thanks again to Robert for telling me about this site.
Here is the lead editorial in today’s Tennessean:
Beware of quick fix on malpractice reform
It’s a fact that Tennessee physicians, particularly those in some specialty groups, have to pay high rates for malpractice insurance. Those high premiums discourage young doctors from pursuing some specialties and drive practicing doctors out of some geographic areas.
Do you have a smoking gun not covered by a protective order? The folks at Slate want it. Read about it here.
The Tennessee appellate courts have a proposed rule about electronic filing that has been released for public comment. Read about it here.
The jury returned a verdict for the defendant today in the retrial of the first federal court Vioxx trial.
A mistrial was declared the first time the case was tried. This time a New Orleans jury went for the defendant.
The lawyer for the plaintiff said that “the biggest problem was Judge Eldon Fallon’s ruling, shortly before the trial, that two of their experts — a cardiologist and a pathologist — could not testify that Vioxx was to blame for Irvin’s heart attack. They were experts in their fields, but not about Vioxx, the judge ruled.”
What we think is happening is happening: there is an increase in the number of cases filed against lawyers. Read this article from the Chicago Tribune to learn more.
Can a defendant doctor testify about what he was told by a consulting doctor? No, according to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
The court held that the statement of the consultant (who received his information about the patient over the telephone from the defendant) was hearsay and that it did not meet the requirements of the 803(4) exception because it did not have “circumstantial guarntees of trustworthiness.” The court explained it this way: “We believe there to be a fundamental difference between statements describing a patient’s condition, symptoms, or history made for the purpose of fostering treatment, and statements made by a consulting physician with no personal knowledge of the patient’s condition or history. Although made for the purposes of medical diagnosis and treatment, such latter statements lack the guarantees of trustworthiness inherent in the former.”
Read the entire opinion here.
