Posts Tagged ‘legal malpractice’

Medical roundup

  • Pressure from HHS leads day cares to ban practice of baby-swaddling, and not everyone’s pleased about that [Abby Schachter, Reason]
  • “If Big Pharma likes your healthcare plan, you can keep it” [Tim Carney]
  • For “those of us with polycystic kidney disease… stringent FDA regulation seems to be taking away hope” [Bill Brazell, Atlantic] And: speaking of the FDA, “Dallas Buyers Club Is a Terrific Libertarian Movie” [David Boaz, Cato] Also: New Peter Huber book, “The Cure in the Code: How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine” [Basic/Manhattan Institute, Wired]
  • $7,440 annual expected loss per hospital bed in Florida vs. $810 in Minnesota, and other med-mal loss statistics [Becker’s Hospital Review via TortsProf]
  • Charge: black lung defense firm finds ways to conceal medical expert reports from adversaries [Center for Public Integrity via Joe Patrice, Above the Law]
  • Prescribing drugs for off-label uses is perfectly legal, but Johnson & Johnson will pay $2.2 billion for promoting the practice [Ann Althouse]
  • Jury awards $4 million legal malpractice verdict against prominent D.C.-based plaintiff’s firm [Richmond Times-Dispatch via White Coat]
  • “Can You Secretly Record the Medical-Legal Exam?” [Eric Turkewitz]

August 7 roundup

  • 7th Circuit cites Rumpelstiltskin; quashes plaintiff’s bid to turn straw to gold [Legal Ethics Forum]
  • “One of the most prolific writers and tweeters in the online legal world. A must read.” Thanks Jim D. [Abnormal Use, and his suggestion about ABA best-blawg nominations is worth heeding]
  • “… as if compliance departments actually are associated with law-abiding behavior…” [Ira Stoll]
  • Sex extortion lawyer Mary Roberts won’t have to pay restitution [MySanAntonio, background]
  • Guess who’s the big new lobby fighting marijuana legalization? Medical-pot providers [Politico]
  • “Woman awarded $775,000 after tripping on speed bump at a Vegas casino” [Calgary Herald]
  • Some thoughts on “libertarian populism” [Jesse Walker, Josh Barro/Tim Carney]

Medical and pharmaceutical roundup

“Lawyers Intentionally Inflicting Emotional Distress”

Imagine how it would change the practice of litigation if lawyers could be held answerable for intentionally inflicting emotional distress on opponents, witnesses or third parties. Of course that’s not going to happen, since our legal profession is quite good at immunizing itself from exposure to liability for the same sorts of injuries that it sues over when inflicted by others. In this SSRN paper (via Robinette, TortsProf), Alex Long of the University of Tennessee proposes a presumption that lawyers’ behavior is “extreme and outrageous,” a precondition of IIED liability, if they could get disbarred for it.

Connecticut: court-appointed probate lawyers seek immunity

The Connecticut Supreme Court is being asked to rule that lawyers and conservators appointed by probate judges are immune from being sued by those they represent. The case arose “because of the abuse that Daniel Gross, an elderly New York man, suffered during 2005 and 2006 at the hands of a Waterbury probate court after he became sick while visiting his daughter.” Gross was placed in a nursing home on conservator’s orders, a decision eventually reversed by a court. [Rick Green, Hartford Courant]