I’m quoted on the subject in Grant Bosse’s article in New Hampshire Watchdog. Earlier here and here. More at Point of Law here (Senate bill) and here (more advantages for trial lawyers).
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Posts tagged as:
medical malpractice
- “Common sense makes a comeback” against zero tolerance in the classroom [USA Today]
- Slip at Massachusetts antiques show leads to lawsuit [Wicked Local Marion]
- Update: Washington Supreme Court takes up horn-honking case [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- MICRA as model: “California’s Schwarzenegger stumps for medical liability reform” [American Medical News]
- “Inventing a better patent system” [Pozen, NYT]
- Google Books settlement narrowed to countries with “common legal heritage” [Sag, ConcurOp]
- One way to make ends meet: cash-strapped Detroit cops are seizing a lot more stuff [Detroit News via Business Insider]
- What temperatures are hot coffee actually served at? Torts buffs (including our Ted Frank) want to know [TortsProf exchange with Michael Rustad and followup, more and yet more]
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- Judge vacates $1.2 billion default judgment against PepsiCo [Watertown, Wisc. Daily Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, earlier]
- “Democrats’ first spokesman on medical malpractice: former head of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association.” [Ponnuru, NRO, on Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley] Related: Carter Wood at Point of Law, Washington Times, David Frum, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (on provision in health bill discouraging states from adopting limits on lawyers’ fees or awards).
- Doubts about “scent lineups” in which police dogs are supposed to sniff out perps [Schwartz, NYT]
- Claimant in Staten Island Ferry crash ran into trouble when he couldn’t prove he was on the boat [NYLJ]
- New York courts strike out baseball injury claims on assumption of risk grounds [Hochfelder first, second, third posts; NYLJ]
- “Microsoft frowned on for smiley patent” [Slashdot via Coleman]
- “Step out of the loop, do something unusual” and run into an army of drones “whose sole job is to prevent their bosses from being sued.” [Never Yet Melted quoting British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson on the U.S.]
- “A veterinarian’s view on ‘defensive medicine’” [Patty Khuly, USA Today]
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- American Federation of Teachers backs off earlier aggressive trademark stance against critical website [AFT Exposed via Ron Coleman, earlier]
- Unintended but ever-so-predictable consequence of cash-for-clunkers: cheap used cars now a lot less cheap [Coyote]
- Strange that Pat Robertson doesn’t seem to know hate-crime laws cover crimes motivated by religious bias [Neiwert]
- Court rules against New York law firm’s debt collection practices [ABA Journal]
- Trouble amid the Lamborghinis: rumors swirl of financial defalcations at prominent south Florida law firm [WSJ Law Blog and more] Plus: Rothstein’s huge bipartisan political donations [DBR]
- Ohio: “Man dressed as a Breathalyzer for Halloween is arrested for DUI” [Obscure Store]
- Blawg star Mark Herrmann (Drug & Device Law) writes a brief in Supreme Court case on (unrelated) topic of prosecutorial immunity for misconduct [Scott Greenfield]
- Administration’s task force on medical liability reform meets amid signs it won’t accomplish much [Wood, ShopFloor; related, Stanley Goldfarb/Weekly Standard]
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Tampa: “When medical malpractice lawyer Michael J. Trentalange asked St. Joseph’s Hospital for every ‘adverse incident’ report made since the hospital opened in 1934, the hospital pushed back hard. In July, the hospital sued him, and Trentalange sued right back, the Web site Health News Florida reported.” (AP/Sarasota Herald Tribune via White Coat).
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CBS Sunday Morning this weekend profiled author, lawyer and reformer (Common Good/”health courts”) Philip K. Howard. Related: Progressive Policy Institute to press health-court idea on Capitol Hill? [AP/Washington Post]
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New from the Manhattan Institute’s Trial Lawyers Inc. project, on health care and the Litigation Lobby; a few of its highlights are summarized here, at Point of Law.
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“Zurich University Hospital has stopped treating North American ‘medical tourists’, fearing million-dollar claims from litigious patients if operations go wrong. Hospitals in canton Valais have also adopted measures to protect themselves against visitors from the United States, Canada and Britain.” [Swissinfo.ch via Mark Perry and Coyote]
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If you’re not following my other site, here’s some of what you’re missing:
- Advance-fee fraud (”Nigerian 419″) scam emails that pose as international product-liability payouts;
- Coverage of the recent Washington, D.C. developments on med-mal reform [Carter Wood and more];
- The soil from which ACORN grew;
- Judges keep swatting down California’s efforts to run its own foreign policy through reparations litigation;
- Which college majors lead to the lowest scores on the LSAT? Why, the most law-related ones;
- And the legal ethics of settlement negotiations.
Why not add Point of Law to your Google Reader or other RSS reader today, along of course with Overlawyered, if you haven’t yet?
Philip K. Howard has a by no means exhaustive list, in The Atlantic.
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HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, now detailed as Obama administration point person in charge of the demonstration projects on liability reform, spent eight years as executive director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association: “I think I’m just the person to do it because I think I understand the system of litigation very well.” Mary Katherine Ham: “Indeed, as I’ve consistently said, the fox is uniquely qualified to guard the henhouse, because he understands the delicious taste of poultry very well.”
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Susan Taylor Martin in the St. Petersburg Times has some striking numbers:
For neurosurgeons in Miami, the annual cost of medical malpractice insurance is astronomical — $237,000, far more than the median price of a house.
In Toronto, a neurosurgeon pays about $29,200 for coverage. It’s even less in Montreal ($20,600) and Vancouver ($10,650).
Among the reasons why: in 1978 the Canadian Supreme Court imposed (on its own) nationwide limits on pain-and-suffering recoveries, adjusted for inflation and now just over $300,000. A single mutual insurer covers most doctors and takes an aggressive approach to defending claims. Most cases are tried before judges. Billboard and TV advertising by lawyers is much less prevalent in Canada. And so forth — all aside from the loser-pays principle.
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Perhaps the most buzzed-about story while I was on vacation (I’m back now) was the frank acknowledgment by former Democratic Party chairman (and former physician) Howard Dean when asked why liability reform was omitted from the health care redesign. 
From the New York Times “Prescriptions” blog:
The man then asked why tort reform was not part of any health overhaul.
Dr. Dean replied that the more items in a big bill, the more enemies it will have. “The people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else,” Dr. Dean said.
Dr. Dean also said he believed that patients should be able to bring actions against health care professionals, but they should go to arbitration. Then the case could go to trial, he said, but the arbitration verdict should be submitted as evidence. Not much reaction to that either way.
Mr. Moran [Northern Virginia Congressman Jim Moran] then apologized to the man whose identity he had questioned and added his 2 cents about why tort reform was not part of any bill. He said if it were, such a bill would have to go through the judiciary committee, which he said was one of the most partisan in Congress and would never have reported it out.
Commentary: Mark Tapscott/Examiner, Washington Times, Darrin McKinney/ATRA, Dan Pero linking Tiger Joyce/Investors Business Daily, Charles Krauthammer/FoxNews.com via Carter Wood/PoL and NRO “Corner”, Fred Barnes/Weekly Standard.
Relatedly, Philip K. Howard writes on “Stonewalling Legal Reform“, citing a Jon R. Gabel piece in the Times that rebuts a much-touted-by-trial-lawyers Congressional Budget Office report minimizing the likely cost reductions from malpractice reform. From the American Spectator Blog, “Conservative Leaders on Costly Lawsuits and Health Care Reform“. And Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO reiterates his argument that while malpractice reform is a good idea, it shouldn’t be imposed on the national level by the federal government.
More: Jim Lindgren at Volokh Conspiracy skewers an appalling report on health care “myths” which received, but did not deserve, the imprimatur of Indiana University.
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Calm down, it’s just a satire [Scott Ott/Scrappleface in D.C. Examiner]
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