- Too much of a stretch: US nixes copyright in yoga exercises [Bloomberg, earlier]
- “Know your rights dealing with cops” material construed as probative of criminality [Popehat] Is Justice Scalia really an “unlikely” champion of defendants’ Constitutional rights? [LATimes, Adler] “Overcriminalization: The Legislative Side of the Problem” [Larkin/Heritage, related Meese] When feds spring false-statements trap, it won’t matter whether you committed underlying offense being investigated [Popehat] “‘Clean Up Government Act’ sparks overcriminalization concerns” [PoL]
- Former Attorney General Mukasey on ObamaCare recusal flap [Adler]
- American Antitrust Institute proposals might be discounted given group’s longstanding pro-plaintiff bias [Thom Lambert]
- NYC: “The tour guide said that the way to get rich is to be a zoning lawyer.” [Arnold Kling]
- “Obama’s Top Ten Constitutional Violations” [Ilya Shapiro, Daily Caller] In at least two major areas, “Obama has broken with precedent to curtail religious freedom” [Steve Chapman]
- Ted Frank-Shirley Svorny med mal debate wraps up [PoL, Bader]
Posts tagged as:
medical malpractice
- Debate on medical malpractice between Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute) and Shirley Svorny (Cato Institute) [PoL]
- Lawyers, accountants have done well from litigation-ridden Pearlman Ponzi aftermath [Orlando Sentinel]
- Book drop “inherently dangerous”, says rape victim’s family suing library designers [Florida, LISNews]
- “The iTunes Class Action Lawsuit You’ll Never Hear About”[NJLRA] “Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado” [Karlsgodt]
- Another tot accused of sexual harassment, this time a first grader [Boston Herald, earlier (six year old's "assault")]
- Profile of lawyer who defends fair use of clips for documentary makers [ABA Journal]
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- Talking back to the “malpractice litigation is no big deal, docs should grin and bear it” theorists [David Sack, ACP via White Coat] “Worst states for medical malpractice risk” [White Coat]
- Jury awards $25 million against hospital that didn’t file abuse report after boy came in with broken wrist [Fayetteville, N.C. Observer]
- “Doctors Question Disability Decisions as Agency Moves to Speed Up Process” [WSJ via Walter Russell Mead]
- New “Federalist Society equivalents” in medicine (Benjamin Rush Society), business, foreign affairs [John J. Miller, Philanthropy]
- Fieger wins $144 million verdict blaming hospital for newborn’s cerebral palsy [suburban Detroit Tribune]
- Feds force birth control coverage on Catholic organizations, and free association suffers [Roger Pilon, Cato]
- Phone call from doc to patient’s home did not establish subsequent jurisdiction to sue there [Madison County Record] NY steps up program to streamline courts’ handling of med-mal claims [WSJ]
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Pennsylvania: “A York man who pleaded guilty to illegally selling prescription drugs is suing the doctor who prescribed the painkillers to him for medical malpractice and medical negligence.” [York Daily Record]
And from the same state: veteran who broke into a pharmacy to steal drugs sues Veterans Administration for not having given him better mental health counseling. [Times-Leader]
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- Self-parody watch: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) wants federal program to dispense free diapers [Fox News]
- Trial-lawyer-friendly Florida Supreme Court could strike down state’s 2003 malpractice limits [Orlando Business Journal]
- Don’t forget to thank Wal-Mart lobbyists for that debit fee charge [Mark Perry]
- “Should insurers [be compelled by law to] pay for eating disorders?” [NYT "Room for Debate"]
- Texas man drops suit against former fiancee [Above the Law]
- “$75,000 Settlement for Muslim Teacher Denied 19 Days’ Unpaid Leave for Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca)” [Volokh]
- Epidemiology for hire: “The Texas Sharpshooter Goes Free Range” [David Oliver]
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Although not conducted through the legal system, some battles in China over alleged injury from medical malpractice make for an interesting compare-and-contrast exercise, right down to the role of contingent fees:
Medical personnel advocates complain that the more violent incidents are staged by hired thugs, paid by families of the deceased in hopes of winning compensation from the hospitals. … The Chinese have even coined a word for the paid protesters: yinao, meaning “medical disturbance.”
“It has become a very sophisticated system for chasing profits. Whenever somebody dies in a hospital, the yinao will get in touch with the family and offer their services in exchange for 30% to 40%,” said Liu Di, who is setting up a social network for medical professionals.
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What kind of medical liability market would emerge if courts decided to begin upholding freedom of contract? I take up that question — and explain some of my misgivings about efforts to portray today’s medical malpractice sector as somehow a free-market arrangement — at Cato at Liberty (& welcome Elie Mystal/Above the Law, GruntDoc, Ramesh Ponnuru readers).
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A new report for the Pioneer Institute by John Biebelhausen (Colorado) and Amy Lischko (Tufts) examines a range of policy options for improving the Massachusetts medical malpractice system, including “less traditional” options such as “contract liability,” a “method for patients to contract directly with doctors or health systems to establish pre-determined rules for compensation in the case of injury due to physician negligence.” ["Innovative Medical Liability Reform: Traditional and Non-Traditional Methods"]
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- Free-Range Kids highlight roundup: Tenn. mom faces child neglect charges if she lets her 5th grader ride bike to school (more); “An Alert for an 11-y.o. Missing for 2 Hours?“; “As recently as 1979, a first-grader could…”
- Political crusades against chain stores are nothing new [Perry]
- “Are You a Surgeon? Sorry, You’re Going to Face a Malpractice Claim By Age 65″ [WSJ Health Blog] Was patient an “obvious” stroke victim? [Duluth N-T via WhiteCoat] Malpractice risks with special needs patients [KevinMD]
- Ethics trial begins for former Maricopa County attorney and Overlawyered favorite Andrew Thomas [ABA Journal]
- Has defense lawyer in Connecticut home invasion case gone too far? [NYT]
- “Reason.tv: Regulation and the Entrepreneur”
- “A Decade After 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized” [Balko, Hinkle, more]
“According to State Health Facts, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the total amount paid in medical-malpractice claims in 2009 was almost eight times higher in New York than Texas, with the average New York payment nearly three times higher.” Physicians keep voting with their feet to escape the New York model. [Joseph Nixon, NY Post; Coyote]
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- Yikes! “House Committee Approves Bill Mandating That Internet Companies Spy on Their Users” [EFF; Julian Sanchez, New York Post/Cato and podcast]
- Australia courts skeptical about claim that sex injury is covered under workers’ comp [Herald Sun]
- Well-off community doesn’t need annual HUD grant, seeks to sell it [Dan Mitchell]
- Report: playful City Museum in St. Louis has taken down signs criticizing lawyers [Bill Childs/TortsProf, earlier]
- Chicago neurosurgeons pay $4500 a week in med-mal premiums, blame lawless Illinois Supreme Court [Medill Reports] Supreme Court declines to review Feres doctrine, which shields military doctors (among others) from suits [Stars and Stripes] Why is the most widely cited number of medical-misadventure deaths such an outlier? [White Coat; more here, here, etc.]
- After “Facebook broken heart” suit, will pre-nups for Mafia Wars relationships be next? [Tri-Cities Herald]
- Another horrific report of poppy seed positive drug test followed by child-grabbing [Radley Balko]
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- Don’t: “Lawyer Disbarred for Verbal Aggression to Pay $9.8M Fine for Hiding Cash Overseas” [Weiss, ABA Journal]
- Loser-pays might help: “Dropped malpractice lawsuits cost legal system time and money” [Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe]
- “Kim Kardashian and the Problem With ‘Celebrity Likeness’ Lawsuits” [Atlantic Wire]
- Kim Strassel on the Franken-spun Jamie Leigh Jones case [WSJ]
- Peggy Little interviews Prof. Lester Brickman (Lawyer Barons) on new Federalist Society podcast;
- Worse than Wisconsin? “Weaponizing” recusal at the Michigan Supreme Court [Jeff Hadden, Detroit News]
- New York legislature requires warning labels for sippy cups [NYDN]
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- Illinois prisoner sues for land to start his own country [AP]
- “Have you got a piece of this lawsuit?” Important Roger Parloff piece on litigation finance [Fortune, now out from paywall] “Hedge Funds Finance Medical Malpractice Claims” [Jeff Segal, Michael Sacopulos and Wayne Oliver, Forbes via White Coat]
- Criminalizing bad parenting: more scrutiny of “Caylee’s Law” proposals [Steve Chapman, L.A. Times and Boston Globe editorials, New Scientist]
- Deal with ADA complainant averts closure of popular Popponesset Marketplace in Mashpee, Mass. [Cape Cod News]
- Because it’s not as if NYC needs electricity or anything: Bloomberg gives $50 million to Sierra Club campaign to stop coal burning by utilities [WaPo] “Environmental justice” arguments deployed against pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil to U.S. [John Kendrick, WLF]
- Unimpaired have permanent right to sue: Fla. high court throws out asbestos-reform law [PBP]
- Red tape demanded by quality-of-life progressivism suffices to strangle poorer urban economies [Walter Russell Mead]
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- “Electronic Arts Has Right to Refer to John Dillinger in Its Video Games” [Volokh]
- Fans of “Civil Gideon” (constitutional entitlement to publicly funded lawyers in civil cases) glum that SCOTUS didn’t give idea much of a boost in Turner v. Rogers case last week [Concurring Opinions symposium, ABA Journal]
- Feds (in particular, the FTC) go after Google [AW, Manne & Wright/TotM, Stoll]
- “The Dept of Education, Yale, and the New Threat to Free Speech on Campus” [Greg Lukianoff/HuffPo] “In Making Campuses Safe for Women, a Travesty of Justice for Men” [Christina Sommers, Chron Higher Ed] Feds crack down on campus flirting and sex jokes [Michael Barone, D.C. Examiner] Heather Mac Donald on Yale hostile-environment complaint [City Journal, earlier] “Why Cross-Examination Rights Matter in Campus Sexual Harassment Cases” [Hans Bader]
- Trial lawyer propaganda coup? HBO airs plaintiff’s-side “Hot Coffee” documentary [Abnormal Use, Ted Frank/PoL, Schwartz/NYT, more, yet more]
- Financial institutions abroad will be pleased to be roped into U.S. regulatory schemes. Won’t they? [Dan Mitchell, Cato at Liberty]
- Proposal for judge-guided negotiations in NY med-mal cases leaves Ted Frank underwhelmed [PoL]
- “Virginia inmate sues after gruesome tries at sex change” [AP]
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It’s quite real, I argue at Cato at Liberty — and I try to draw some distinctions as to ways Congress could usefully address liability without inserting itself into the proper business of the state courts. More: Adler, Volokh; Reynolds, Instapundit, Turkewitz, Childs/TortsProf, Beck/Drug & Device Law.
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- Hey, why don’t we invade people’s privacy so we can recruit them as figureheads for our privacy-invasion class action? [Cal Biz Lit, earlier on Starbucks pot-convictions case] Class-action coupon settlements are a no-win for consumers [Michelle Singletary, WaPo]
- “Former Silicosis Clients Sue O’Quinn Law Firm, Estate” [Texas Lawyer via PoL, related earlier]
- Gathering ammunition for suits: “Are your employees recording you?” [Hyman]
- Canada: “Inflatables too dangerous for school fair” [Free-Range Kids]
- Evaluating the effectiveness of medical liability reforms [Kachalia & Mello, NEJM]
- “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ‘Judge Judy’” [TV Squad]
- “Woman awarded $45,000 after dog kills cat” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
- In suit over weird, elaborate online hoax, court allows fraudulent-misrepresentation claim despite lack of motive of tangible gain [Chi Trib]
- Service animal rodeo: “A trained rat probably would have had a good case in California” [AP/Statesman-Journal] Broward County, Fla. backs lonely widow’s right to keep “prescription Chihuahua” against rules of condo board [AOL, Sun-Sentinel] Oklahoma: “Depressed Woman Fights to Keep Therapy Kangaroo” [Newser] Earlier on recent change in federal rules;
- Should lawmakers screen bills for constitutionality? Ms. Lithwick has trouble sticking to a position [AEternitatis]
- Human-relations complaint leads to arrest of U.K. man for singing “Kung Fu Fighting” [MSNBC]
- Barney Frank: Yes, let’s talk about med-mal reform [The Hill] Ringing the bell: Roundups of more big med-mal verdicts [White Coat, more]
- “Expert Witnesses Stripped Of Immunity From Negligence Suits In The UK” [Erik Magraken]
- “Sustainability”: an empty idea? Or perhaps actively wrongheaded? [David Friedman via David Henderson]
- Maricopa-cabana: Sheriff Arpaio uses tank (with Steven Seagal along) to raid cockfight suspect [KPHO, Coyote, Greenfield, Balko]
- Malpractice reform in New York is about more than money (though it’s about that too) [Paul Rubin, TotM; NYDN]
- EEOC initiative combats alleged employer bias against unemployed job applicants [Bales/Workplace Prof, Hyman]
- After court rejection of Google Books settlement, where next? [Timothy Lee/ArsTechnica, David Post]
- When your lawyerly conduct has been eviscerated by Judge Easterbrook, you know it [Above the Law]
- Ninth Circuit rules on legality of keyword advertising using other firms’ trademarks [Coleman]
- Election showdown over future of Wisconsin Supreme Court [PoL, more, Esenberg, Althouse]
- Legal battle follows NYC’s attempted application of sidewalk bicycle ban to unicyclist [AP]
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