Where’s the beef?
Rep. Rob Briley lead an effort to make medical malpractice insurers and health care providers to reveal to the State of Tennessee what their claims experience was. Malpractice insurers and health care providers fought this type of disclosure for almost two decades and, given what was disclosed, one can understand why they did so.
The first report came out yesterday, and it is of no particular surprise to anyone who does medical malpractice legal work.
You may remember that the Florida voters passed a cap on attorneys’ fees in medical malpractice cases. The constitutional amendment was pushed by Florida’s doctors. Fees are capped at 30% for the first $250,000 and 10% on any amount over $250,000.
Lawyers representing patients began asking them if they wanted to waive the cap of fees. The doctors then got a group of lawyers to petition the Florida Supreme Court to have the Court change its rules of professional conduct to limit attorney’s fees in medical malpractice cases. The doctor’s efforts is being led by former Florida Supreme Court Justice Stephen Grimes who works for Holland & Knight.
Grimes led an effort to get 54 lawyers to sign a petition to get the rules changed – Florida rules require at least 50 lawyers to sign a petition to start the process. Former Justice Grimes managed to get 19 lawyers from his firm to sign the petition – quite an amazing result given the fact that the firm advertises that it has “1200 lawyers and professionals.”
Rueters reports that “in a review of patient specimens, errors in cancer diagnosis were seen in up to 11.8 percent of cases, according to a report in the medical journal Cancer. Moreover, in a substantial proportion of cases, the error caused some degree of harm for the patient.”
The article goes on to say that “the frequency of errors varied between hospitals and ranged from 1.79 percent to 9.42 percent for gynecologics cases and from 4.87 percent to 11.8 percent for other cases, the researchers note. A significant link between the institution and the error cause was observed. As for the cause of errors, up to 50 percent were due to misinterpretation with the remainder being due to poor tissue sampling.”
Forbes has an even more complete description of the study.
Bryant Flury alleged that he was injured when his air bag failed to open. He brought suit against the manufacturer of the truck he was driving at the time of the one vehicle accident. He won a $250,000 jury verdict.
The manufacturer appealed on several grounds, including that the subject vehicle was destroyed before the manufacturer had an opportunity to inspect it. The vehicle had been stored at Flury’s home but State Farm, the vehicle’s insurer, had taken the vehicle from the home and sold it for its salvage value.
The trial judge told the jury that if it found that the plaintiff was responsible for the loss of the vehicle a rebuttable presumption arose that the vehicle was not defective. The 11th Circuit reversed the verdict, saying that the loss of the vehicle was the sole fault of the plaintiff and that the only appropriate sanction was dismissal of the action.
There is a fascinating but disturbing story in today’s New York Times about a federal court case involving claims arising from alleged injuries because of exposure to silica. Judge Jack has raised serious questions about whether the claims are legitimate and the role of the doctors and claimant’s lawyers in making the diagnosis.
From the article: “‘It is apparent that truth and justice had very little to do with these diagnoses – otherwise more effort would have been devoted to ensuring they were accurate,’ Judge Jack wrote. ‘These diagnoses were driven by neither health nor justice: they were manufactured for money. The record does not reveal who originally devised this scheme, but it is clear that the lawyers, doctors and screening companies were all willing participants.'”
The NYT article includes a link to Judge Jack’s 249 page opinion.
I love handling appeals. I prefer to be an appellee, and I would just as soon win and move on, but if we have to end up in an appellate court, I enjoy the work.
Here is a publication from the Defense Research Institute addressing various issues concerning appeals, including some legal writing tips.
The Insurance Commissioner from the State of Washington has released a fascinating study of malpractice insurance rates for physicians in that state. A news report of the findings says “that the amount doctors pay for malpractice insurance in 2005 is largely equal to or less than what they paid for coverage in 1985 when adjusted for inflation. These findings and others ‘fly in the face of those who claim that something dramatic has changed relating to malpractice suits in Washington,’ said Commissioner Mike Kreidler.”
Claims were also studied: “There were 10,212 closed claims during the period. Of those, 45 claims – less than 1 percent – were decided by a jury. Of those claims, 27 percent resulted in payments to patients. More than 60 percent were for $100,000 or less and less than 2 percent resulted in payments of more than $1 million.”
Here is the study itself.
A jury in South Texas returned a jury verdict against Ford yesterday.
A teenager died when the truck rolled over and the roof crushed. The truck was forced off the road by the actions of another driver. That driver was also apportioned fault in the incident. Ford was given 90% of the fault.
Plaintiffs introduced testing that demonstrated when the truck was dropped from a height of nine inches the roof crushed down to the headrest.
Can a passenger of one vehicle sue a passenger of a different vehicle alleging that the latter negligently told the vehicle driver that it was safe to back up when, in fact, it was not, and the resulting wreck injured the former?
This is a classic duty question – it has been certified to the Florida Supreme Court. Read the opinion here.
Remember that even if there is not a duty in general there may well be a duty because of the “gratuitous undertaking” of giving the driver advice. But that gives rise to a duty issue itself. Why? Because while the passenger who undertook the duty to “be on the lookout” for the driver of his car would clearly owe a duty to that driver and probably other passengers in that car there is still an issue of whether the passenger would owe a duty to the passengers of other vehicles.
The Plaintiffs’ proof is about over, and the jury has been permitted to ask questions. To read about the current status of this important case, click here.
