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]

Libertarians and medical malpractice

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).