The “Bad Medicine” heading, which archives posts relating to medical liability, has grown so large as to be unwieldy for readers, so we’re opening up a “Bad Medicine II” heading for posts from here on. [Superseded]
Archive for August, 2004
“Ohio jury deliberates on camera”
Germany: pub owner wrong to sack 100-beer-a-day worker
“A German waiter who was sacked for drinking up to 100 bottles of beer every day has won a case for unfair dismissal. The 50-year-old, who had worked at the Unter Taschenmacher pub in Cologne for eight years, admitted that his managers had repeatedly warned him not to drink at work.” The unnamed man conceded drinking the beer but said he had been traumatized by losing his “dream” job. The tribunal agreed and awarded him three months’ salary plus ?3,000. (“German pub owner left crying into his beer by tribunal ruling”, Personnel Today (UK), Aug. 24).
Icky road to wealth
A Philadelphia jury has awarded $4 million to 17-year-old Anastasia Roberts in her lawsuit against Grand King Buffet, a Chinese restaurant, over an incident in which Roberts chewed on and then spat out a foreign object in a sweet potato ball which proved to be a used bandage. According to her suit “Grand King threw the bandage away, destroying evidence”, and the offending object had blood and pus on it. Roberts, who per the allegations in the suit suffered mightily from post-traumatic stress over the affair, plans to become a nurse. (Dan Gross, “A ‘bloody’ $4M award for teen”, Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 3; “A fuss over pus”, City Paper, Jan. 22-28).
Welcome Ken & Daria Dolan viewers
I was a guest on the Dolans’ CNN Financial show this morning to discuss medical malpractice reform and the presidential race.
They Came To Stay II
We previously covered the surprising side effect of legal reforms to protect tenants against landlords: homeowners in Florida discovering that a friend or relative invited as a guest gets to leave only when they want to leave without expensive litigation to evict them (Feb. 19). This had tragic results in Montgomery County, Maryland last week. 71-year-old Joyce Hadl charitably allowed a homeless woman, Susan L. Sachs, to stay with her rent-free in exchange for work around the house. According to a friend of Hadl’s, when Sachs started exhibiting signs of mental illness, “walking around the house and calling Hadl insulting names”, Hadl became alarmed and tried to get her to leave, but police called to the home concluded that they could not legally remove her. Hadl has since disappeared, and Sachs is now under police custody, having been charged with her first-degree murder. (David Snyder and Amit R. Paley, “New Arrests in Disappearance”, Washington Post, Aug. 26).
Drops baby from bridge, sues bridge owner over stress
Vancouver: “Nadia Hama, who dropped her infant daughter from the Capilano Suspension Bridge nearly five years ago, is pressing ahead with a suit against the operators of the privately owned tourist attraction. … Hama’s daughter Kaya, then 17 months old, miraculously survived the plunge after tree branches broke her 150-foot fall into the rocky canyon.” (“Woman who dropped baby from bridge sues bridge owner for stress”, Canadian Press/ AZCentral.com, Aug. 24). We last covered the case Oct. 8, 2001.
A doctor’s question
On malpractice exposure, and reimbursement rates: “Why am I worth so little when I do my job right, and worth so much when I make a mistake?” (courtesy Cut to Cure, Aug. 25).
“Recovered memory” doubter sued
Prof. Elizabeth Loftus, the psychologist whose writings and expert testimony have been highly influential in casting doubt on the reliability of buried and then putatively recovered memories of abuse (see Mar. 22 and links from there), is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by a “Jane Doe” abuse complainant whose allegations Loftus critically examined in a 2002 article for Skeptical Inquirer (the valuable magazine of CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims for the Paranormal). Trial is expected soon: “If she loses, not only will academic freedom have arguably suffered a grievous blow, but on a personal level, Loftus herself could face bankruptcy.” “Jane Doe” also “filed an ethics complaint against Loftus with the University of Washington. Though the university eventually cleared Loftus of breaking research protocols — after seizing all of her files on the case and preventing her from publishing her work for almost two years — its support was so lukewarm, and its unwillingness to stand by its controversial psychologist during the current lawsuit so clear, that Loftus was only too happy to accept an offer from Irvine.” (Sasha Abramsky, “Memory and Manipulation”, L.A. Weekly, Aug. 20-26) (via Brian Doherty, Reason “Hit and Run”, Aug. 24). Update: see Jun. 26, 2005 (L.A. Times covers case).
Gun dealer settles for $850K
Perry J. Bruce purchased ten guns between 1994 and 1997 from Jon K. Sauers of Sauers Trading in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and dozens from other gun shops in the area. The guns were sold to Bruce legally–he had no record–but Bruce would then go on to illegally resell the guns on the street for a profit, eventually leading to his conviction for gun trafficking in 1998. On April 19, 1999, one of those guns was found by a child under a parked car; that child proceeded to shoot and kill 7-year-old Nafis Jefferson. So, given that someone illegally sold a gun to someone who eventually negligently left on the ground where it was found by someone who then negligently (or worse) killed someone, the mother, with the help of the Brady Center and co-counsel Mark LeWinter, sued… Sauers, who legally sold the gun, and Rossi, who manufactured the gun, and Taurus, which bought Rossi. (Taurus was sued because they failed to “recall and retrofit” the gun with safety devices–as if a Philadelphia thug who leaves his gun under a parked car was going to turn in his illegally possessed gun to be outfitted with a childproof lock.)
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports,
Sauers testified in a deposition in the Jefferson case that he complied with state and federal law, properly filling out all forms in each sale to Bruce.
But he never asked Bruce why he was buying all the guns.
Asked why he never questioned Bruce, Sauers replied in the deposition: “I don’t know what my reason would be to ask him. I didn’t think it was any of my business.”
Sauers settled out of the suit for $850,000. I still haven’t seen an explanation in the Brady Center materials what Sauers was supposed to have done differently, though they emphasize that Bruce was unemployed and used his welfare card for identification. (Is the state of being poor is reason enough to preclude someone from buying a gun?) “There is a risk of liability that is now real for gun sellers all across the country,” the Brady Center’s Dennis Henigan said, and we couldn’t say it better ourselves. (L. Stuart Ditzen, “Dealer settles suit over gunplay”, Aug. 24; AP, Apr. 21; our gun coverage).