Florida, like many states, prohibits attorneys from actually chasing ambulances, but some lawyers try to circumvent this. David A. Barrett had one of his paralegals take training to be admitted as a hospital chaplain, whereupon he would solicit clients for Barrett while wearing a pastor’s uniform. The Florida Supreme Court did not look kindly upon this when he was caught. David Giacalone has enough links to all the details to shake a stick at.
Posts Tagged ‘hospitals’
They mixed those children up/And not a creature knew it
At North Suburban Medical Center outside Denver, nurses mistakenly gave the wrong newborn to a mother to breast feed. The mistake was discovered after a few minutes, the infant having declined the proffered refreshment, but the woman’s family is now suing and the other family is considering suing too. (“Mom Sues Hospital Claiming She Nursed Wrong Baby”, KMGH-TV, Mar. 16)(title allusion).
HIPAA and small towns
What were once thought of as neighborly acts of kindness now pose too great a risk of medical privacy violations under federal law (Joe Ruff, “Communities Adjust To Medical Privacy Laws”, AP/ABC News, Mar. 12; via KevinMD). For more on the Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act, see Feb. 5, 2004 and links from there. More: the Michigan Medical Malpractice blogger says the hospitals are overreacting and a little gathering of permissions from patients/families should fix most of the problems (Mar. 17).
Belated Geoffrey Fieger Report: Wills v. Dillard’s
Jameel Talley had been fired from the local police department, but the mayor of North Randall (pop. 893 and dropping) “sent what he called a ‘second chance’ letter to Maple Heights, saying Talley should not have been fired. The mayor said he ‘erred in judgment’ and ‘recommends 100 percent (that) Talley continue his career in law enforcement.'” So Maple Heights hired him for their police department, where Talley had a spotless record, and the local Dillard’s hired him for off-duty work as a security guard.
Unfortunately, Talley had been fired from North Randall for shooting at a shoplifting suspect.
And, unfortunately again, 41-year-old Guy Wills, under the influence of drugs, decided to shoplift a leather jacket at Dillard’s, and then resist arrest from the much larger Talley. So Talley smashed him upside down into the concrete floor. Unfortunately again, Wills checked himself out of the hospital, got sick at the police station, refused treatment or a trip to the emergency room–and then fell into a coma, and when he woke up, he was dead. Shortly after the incident, Dillard’s shut down the store. Talley was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for excessive force, and sentenced to three years. And Dillard’s, as the deep pocket, was sued. (NewsNet5: Jan. 18 (featuring the great line “Dillard’s attorney, who’s [sic] name is unknown at this time”), June 23, 2003; Nov. 14, 2002; “Dillard’s to close Raleigh Springs store”, Memphis Business Journal, Jan. 27, 2003).
The attorney was none other than Geoffrey Fieger (Oct. 11 and Aug. 31 and lots of links therein), but the trial wasn’t going so well, so he adopted what seems to be a standard tactic: deliberately try to alienate the judge, and then loudly complain about prejudice.
[Judge Nancy Margaret] Russo leveled a litany of legal wrongs against Fieger, including: insulting and berating lawyers and calling them liars; making faces after she ruled against him; repeatedly interrupting testimony; entering objections loudly; and threatening an insurance adjuster with the loss of his job.
“He has been nothing but bullying, loud, obnoxious and unprofessional,” Russo said. “I have tried for three weeks to rein him in. I have done my best.”
The final straw came Thursday after attorney Larry Zukerman accused Fieger of accosting him and threatening to have his client — former Dillard’s store manager Frank Monaco — arrested for obstruction of justice.
Russo threatened Fieger with contempt, and Fieger responded by pulling himself off the case and asking for a mistrial. For some reason, Russo rewarded the antics with exactly what Fieger wanted, and now Fieger gets to start all over with another judge, and a second bite at correcting whatever problems he saw with the first trial. (James F. McCarty, “Lawyer quits case on judge’s threat”, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Jan. 29; James F. McCarty, “Mistrial in wrongful-death case of shoplifter”, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Feb. 1). And shame on our Cleveland readers for not letting us know about this one sooner.
LA commuter rail crash II
More on the LA commuter rail crash (Jan. 27): the Los Angeles Times covers the legal aspects of the case, and suggests prospects of recovery are “slim,” because the accident is Alvarez’s doing. Ten paragraphs into the article, however, the Times acknowledges the principle of joint and several liability, whereby the railroad could be on the hook for the entirety of the economic damages if they’re found 1% responsible for the accident. (Tort reform in California has abolished joint-and-several liability for non-economic damages. Cal. Civ. Code Sec. 1431.2.) Overlawyered has covered numerous cases where the deep pocket was held responsible for the crime of another: for example, ankle monitor manufacturer 20% responsible for murder; apartment complex responsible for carjacking and shooting; beer vendor 50% responsible (plus punitives) for drunk driving accident; automaker jointly liable for drunk driving accident.
Also entertaining is the discussion of the five investigators the California Bar felt they had to send to the scene of the crime and local hospitals to shoo away potentially illegal solicitation by attorneys. (Henry Weinstein, “Victims’ Chances of Winning Big Money Are Slim”, Jan. 28).
Mobile lawyer van on “ER”
Readers may remember our item last May 18 about the mobile law office van spotted parked outside the emergency room at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center. Now Dr. Steven Davidson, whose EMedConcepts blog ran the original photos of the van, reports as follows (Jan. 19):
ER: Season 11, Episode 177861, 1/20/2005
[ . . . ]
A personal injury lawyer sets up a mobile office outside the ER, infuriating Lewis as he tries to turn dissatisfied patients into clients.
[ . . . ]
It turns out that the post on the Mobile Lawyer who showed up at our hospital and ER last spring caught some notice in the blogosphere. Overlawyered picked up the post and I had thousands of hits in a few days. A colleague referred another contact and somehow the story reached the writing staff at the ER production company to appear in the fictionalized version on tomorrow’s show [i.e. yesterday’s — W.O.]. Imagine that.
(via SymTym).
Finding an OB in Illinois
Dr. Benjamin Brewer, who writes the Wall Street Journal’s “The Doctor’s Office” column, discusses the OB shortage caused in Illinois by the medical malpractice problem. Trial lawyers like to blame the insurance industry’s investments and “business practices,” but the leading insurer in Illinois, ISMIE, has only 3% of its funds in the stock market. (Moreover, ISMIE is a mutual insurer–profits go back to its member doctors. The doctors aren’t conspiring to charge themselves too much; ISMIE’s rates reflect the payouts it makes in malpractice cases.) Large swaths of southern Illinois and nearly half the counties in the state have no obstetrical hospital services at all. Brewer concludes “it may take a federal law to stimulate the reform process in Illinois, where entrenched proponents of our broken system hold political and judicial sway.” (“When a Pregnant Patient Struggles to Find Care”, Jan. 4). Our sister site, Point of Law, comments on tomorrow’s Presidential visit to Madison County, where Bush will discuss his litigation reform agenda for the upcoming Congress. (Krysten Crawford, “Bush heads to ‘Judicial Hellhole'”, CNN/Money, Jan. 4; Ryan Keith, “Bush to Highlight Tort Reform in Ill.”, AP/Newsday, Jan. 4; Caleb Hale, “Doctors Are Eager To Hear What Bush Will Say About Crisis”, The Southern, Jan. 4; Mark Silva, “Bush’s tort reform efforts to start at ‘judicial hellhole'”, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 3).
Hospital sued over lack of neurosurgeons
Coming full circle: in Florida, the family of the late Barbara Masterson is suing West Boca Medical Center because hospital staff was unable to locate a neurosurgeon willing to come to the scene to perform life-saving surgery after a stroke. “The incident occurred in February, when Palm Beach County neurosurgeons were refusing to perform emergency services for fear of skyrocketing malpractice costs. The Mastersons’ lawyer, Gary Cohen, said the hospital was aware of the unavailability of neurosurgeons for emergency work “and should have never taken her in.” (John Murawski, “West Boca Medical Center sued over woman’s death”, Palm Beach Post, Dec. 23).
Canadian court: co. to blame for unionist’s bomb
A Canadian employer has now been held partly to blame for a murderous onslaught by one of its adversaries in a labor dispute:
A court has awarded $10.7 million in damages to the widows of nine men killed by a bomb during a labour dispute at Yellowknife’s Giant Mine, blaming the mining company and the union almost as much as the man who laid the explosives….
Justice Arthur Lutz ruled that none of the involved parties did enough to control the relentless and escalating violence on the picket line that summer. He assigned almost equal blame to the union, Royal Oak Mines and Roger Warren, who was convicted of the murders. Lutz also assigned a share of the damages to Pinkerton’s security, two union activists and the N.W.T. government….
Royal Oak had argued that it couldn’t have predicted the deaths, but Lutz scorned the reasoning. … The judge said violence and threats were rampant during the 18-month strike, including physical injuries, property damage and sabotage. Strikers staked out the houses of replacement workers and stole explosives from the mine, setting off one blast that cut off power to a hospital.
(“Giant Mine widows awarded $10.7M”, CBC, Dec. 16).
“The county had no neurosurgeon, and the boy died”
Chester County, Pennsylvania:
The boy [a 17-year-old who had sustained head trauma in an auto accident] could not be treated at Brandywine Hospital in Coatesville because the trauma center had closed, so he was transferred to Crozier-Chester Medical Center in Delaware County….
‘The last neurosurgeon in Chester County was Sam Lyness, a world-class neurosurgeon,” [Robert] Surrick said, but Lyness left Pennsylvania when his malpractice premiums reached $383,000. With no neurosurgeons, Brandywine shut down its trauma center in 2002.
(Paul Carpenter, Allentown Morning Call, Nov. 28).