- “Businesses Warn Fear of Lawsuits Could Stall Rebooting of Economy” [Andrew G. Simpson, Insurance Journal; New York Times (“liability companies could face if employees were to get sick after returning to work”); Eugene Volokh (Jim Salzman proposal on assumption of risk legislation, and the constitutional angle)]
- Emergency declaration triggered liability protections for people and enterprises responding to outbreak [Andrew Bayman, Geoffrey Drake, and Mark Sentenac, King & Spalding; Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law] 2005 pandemic-preparedness bill’s liability protections were inevitably assailed by Sen. Edward Kennedy and Public Citizen [Tyler Cowen]
- “Protect the Doctors and Nurses Who Are Protecting Us; They need immunity from lawsuits and prosecution for triage decisions.” [I. Glenn Cohen, Andrew Crespo, and Douglas White, New York Times; Erik Larson, Bloomberg]
- “Class Actions During COVID-19” [Frank T. Spano and Elizabeth M. Marden, Polsinelli]
- From before the crisis: “New York Holds that Registration to do Business does not Constitute Consent to General Personal Jurisdiction” [Stephen McConnell, earlier here and here]
- More from before the crisis: Federalist Society debate between Brian Fitzpatrick and Ted Frank on Fitzpatrick’s new book The Conservative Case for Class Actions; trucking business reels under huge verdicts [Matt Cole, Commercial Carrier Journal, parts one and two, earlier here, etc.] Ex-client sues Houston’s “Car Wreck Clyde” charging case running and other no-nos [Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, Texas Lawyer] In Florida, “‘Inconspicuous’ political cash helped trial lawyers notch wins against insurers” [Matt Dixon and Arek Sarkissian, Politico]
Posts Tagged ‘medical malpractice’
“Make this simple change to free up hospital beds now”
Doctors need legal assurance today that they won’t get sued if they send low-risk non-virus cases home rather than keep them in scarce beds getting marginally valuable tests — even if it is only a temporary step for the duration of the emergency. [Jeremy Samuel Faust, Washington Post; Faust is an emergency physician at Brigham & Women’s in Boston, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School]
Medical roundup
- Wild scandal of Malibu rehab-center guru charged with alleged $176 million insurance fraud has roots in the artificial conditions imposed by federal law [Chris Edwards, Cato]
- “A new Trump executive order on kidneys could save thousands of lives” [Dylan Matthews/Vox via Alex Tabarrok]
- Advocates have long campaigned to change the law so as to allow medical malpractice suits by service members against the U.S. military. Are they getting close? [Roxana Tiron and Travis J. Tritten, Bloomberg Law; James Clark/Task & Purpose] New study of defensive medicine, extrapolated from data reflecting military immunity, finds “suggestive evidence that liability immunity reduces inpatient spending by 5 percent with no measurable negative effect on patient outcomes.” [Michael Frakes and Jonathan Gruber, American Economic Journal via Scott Sumner]
- Meanwhile, said to be new record: Baltimore jury awards $229 million in claim of obstetric brain injury that Johns Hopkins says is “not supported by the evidence” [Tim Prudente, Baltimore Sun via Saurabh Jha (“My guess is that this verdict won’t reduce the frequency of C-sections in the US”)] “Best & Worst States for Doctors” [John S. Kiernan, WalletHub]
- It might not always improve outcomes in a hard science like medicine to rethink every issue through an “equity lens.” Case in point: differing male and female rates of heart disease [Anish Koka, Quillette]
- “Medical Malpractice Reform: What Works and What Doesn’t” [W. Kip Viscusi, forthcoming Denver Law Review]
Medical roundup
- “How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic” [William N. Evans and Ethan Lieber, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy] Antiquated regulations on methadone need revision [Jeffrey Singer, Cato] Concept of addiction is constantly run together with that of dependence, and applied in such dubious areas as “social media addiction” [Singer]
- EEOC sues Tennessee hospital over lapse of religious accommodation in its mandatory flu shot policy (but is a mask as effective as the vaccine?) [EEOC press release]
- Free to Choose Medicine: a review [Thomas Hemphill, Cato Regulation magazine]
- Texas law limiting med-mal suits: “Fifteenth Anniversary of Proposition 12” [Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse]
- Time to include electronic components in the BAAA: “Biomaterials Access for the 21st Century” [Jim Beck]
- Affordable Care Act’s incentive program punishing hospitals for readmissions had unintended consequences, we know now. Were some of them lethal? [Tyler Cowen on Rishi K. Wadhera, Karen E. Joynt Maddox and Robert W. Yeh, New York Times]
Medical roundup
- “Researchers from Duke and MIT… found that the possibility of a lawsuit increased the intensity of health care that patients received in the hospital by about 5 percent — and that those patients who got the extra care were no better off.” [Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times]
- Cato Policy Analysis and podcasts (with Caleb Brown) by Terence Kealey: “The Feds’ Demonization of Dietary Fat” and “Why Does the Federal Government Issue Damaging Dietary Guidelines?” Related: Britain’s “food supply is being taxed, regulated and reformulated – on the pretext of a lie” [Christopher Snowdon, Spectator (U.K.)]
- New Jersey, a key state because of its volume of pharmaceutical liability litigation, joins national trend by adopting Daubert standard on expert evidence [Colleen O’Dea/N.J. Spotlight, Beck, John O’Brien/Legal NewsLine]
- “Criminal prosecution for violating HIPAA: an emerging threat to health care professionals” [Anne M. Murphy, Laura B. Angelini, and Jared Shwartz, STAT]
- Do-it-yourself workarounds for obtaining compounds blocked or restricted by FDA/pharma regulation, albeit entangled with IP issues. With bonus code-as-speech angle [Daniel Oberhaus, Vice Motherboard]
- “Hotels do want to tell you the real price. Until hospitals do too, they will find their way around disclosure regulations” [John Cochrane; related Cochrane on lack of price competition among air ambulances]
Surgeon fights to dispel erroneous claim of having lied to patient
Lawyers can assert damaging untruths about you in litigation and you will find no recourse, part 7,281: the lawyer who accused Yale-New Haven Dr. Ricardo Quarrie of lying to a patient to cover up a mistake has recanted, but the accusation still haunts the surgeon’s good name [Elizabeth Cohen, CNN]
Claim: doctors should be obliged to ask patients about guns
Right on schedule, here come claims that doctors may have an actual generalized legal duty (not just a right) to ask about guns in the home [Elisabeth J. Ryan, Petrie-Flom Center “Bill of Health”]
I join Dr. Saurabh Jha to discuss law, medicine, and American tort history
A noteworthy podcast: I join Dr. Saurabh Jha [@RogueRad on Twitter] for an lengthy discussion of how American tort and medical malpractice law has changed over the past century, similarities and differences with Britain, how ethics in the legal field stacks up against ethical trends in medicine and the pharmaceutical business, contingency fees, the successes and shortcomings of legislated tort reform, trends in the courts, incentives for medical testing, and much more. It’s all part of Dr. Jha’s podcast series, associated with the Journal of the American College of Radiology. You can listen here.
Medical roundup
- After malpractice caps, doctors ordered fewer invasive tests to diagnose heart attacks [Elizabeth Cooney, Stat]
- Product liability defense lawyer manages to survive peremptory challenge and make it onto a jury for a med-mal case, and here are his observations [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law]
- “How Big Government Backed Bad Science and Made Americans Fat” [Reason interview with Nina Teicholz]
- Suits against blood thinner Xarelto have done poorly. Can plaintiff’s lawyers keep plugging away till they get wins? [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine]
- “Pharmacy Benefit Managers Are Not the Cause of High Prescription Drug Prices” [Ike Brannon]
- Advice for physicians: “5 ways to live through medical malpractice lawsuits” [Stacia Dearmin, KevinMD]
Medical roundup
- Outcry among British doctors after trainee pediatrician convicted of negligent homicide in death of patient following systemic errors at understaffed hospital [Telegraph, Saurabh Jha, Medscape, General Medical Council]
- “There’s no particular reason to think that smokers will be happier with denatured tobacco than drinkers have been with weak beer.” [J.D. Tuccille on FDA plans to reduce nicotine level in cigarettes]
- “Why Doesn’t the Surgeon General Seek FDA Reclassification of Naloxone to OTC?” [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
- “1 in 3 physicians has been sued; by age 55, 1 in 2 hit with suit” [Kevin B. O’Reilly, AMA Wire] “Best and worst states for doctors” [John S Kiernan, WalletHub]
- “Soon came a ‘routine’ urine drug test, ostensibly to ensure she didn’t abuse the powerful drug. A year later, she got the bill for that test. It was $17,850.” [Beth Mole, ArsTechnica]
- Milkshakes could be next as sugar-tax Tories in Britain pursue the logic of joylessness [Andrew Stuttaford, National Review]