Posts Tagged ‘medical malpractice’

July 23 roundup

July 13 roundup

  • Wal-Mart spending millions to fight $7,000 OSHA fine? Not so paradoxical when you think about it [Coyote]
  • Proliferation of product recalls, as with warnings, can result in consumer fatigue and inattention [WaPo via PoL]
  • Settlement said to be near between casino and gambler who lost $127 million [WSJ, UPI, earlier]
  • “Think Globally, Sue Locally: Out-of-Court Tactics Employed by Plaintiffs, Their Lawyers, and Their Advocates in Transnational Tort Cases” [study, PDF and press release; Jonathan Drimmer for US Chamber, related WSJ]
  • “End of an Era? Another Crunch Berries Case Dismissed” [Lowering the Bar, California Civil Justice, earlier on “froot” cases here, here, etc.]
  • New Jersey: “School legal costs are a killer” [Rayner, Daily Record]
  • ABA Journal profiles Ted Frank;
  • We’re the ones who write the laws around here, not you legislators: Washington Supreme Court strikes down med-mal notice law [SeattlePI.com]

Define “forced,” please

“We were forced to try a case against the most innocent guy of all.” — medical malpractice lawyer Daniel Buttafuoco last month, explaining why a Queens, N.Y. jury ruled against his suit blaming a surgeon for a transplant patient’s death. [NYDN via Tuteur (“Parse those sentences and you will come face to face with what is wrong with the malpractice system in this country.”)]

Malpractice systems in other countries

They do things very differently elsewhere, reports the AMA’s American Medical News (via White Coat):

“Nobody is as hospitable to potential liability as we are in this country,” said Richard A. Epstein, director of the law and economics program at the University of Chicago Law School. “The unmistakable drift is we do much more liability than anybody else, and the evidence on improved care is vanishingly thin.”

In other news, the Obama administration is now rolling out its test project grants on med-mal; for reasons already aired in this space, Carter Wood isn’t expecting much.

June 3 roundup

  • I’ve got a new post at Cato at Liberty tying together prosecutors’ demands for business forfeiture for immigration violations with proposals to criminalize employee misclassification;
  • I can’t believe it’s not a lawsuit: margarine class action melts away [Cal Biz Lit]
  • Guess what, your asbestos trial is scheduled in 11 days [Korris, MC Record]
  • “This website has to be removed”: mayor of Bordentown, N.J. wants to shut down online critic [Citizen Media Law]
  • What is a think tank and what does it do? I and others contribute answers at Allen McDuffee’s Think Tanked blog;
  • No surprise here: Insurer offers policy to cover things that go wrong in medical tourism, but won’t cover USA residents or facilities [Treatment Abroad via White Coat]
  • Pennsylvania law curbing med-mal forum-shopping disappoints lawyers who used to head for Philly or Wilkes-Barre [Sunbury, Pa. Daily Item via, again, White Coat]
  • New Haven pizzeria busted: owners let their kids work at restaurant [Amy Alkon]

May 24 roundup

March 2 roundup

February 12 roundup

Texas prosecutor charges nurses for reporting doctor

Two Winkler County nurses filed accusations of problematic practices against Doctor Rolando G. Arafiles Jr. before the Texas Medical Board in April; a prosecutor who was friends with the doctor has now charged the two with a felony, “misuse of official information.” Local and national nursing associations have protested and established a legal defense fund. (Kevin Sack, “Nurse to Stand Trial for Reporting Doctor”, New York Times, Feb. 6; KFDA (undated)). It’s possible that the nurses made false accusations maliciously, but that seems something that could be handled through civil suits and then only after the Texas Medical Board adjudicated the complaints. Such overreaching by doctors could backfire, as it would give credence to the proposition that medical malpractice lawsuits are a necessary check to incompetent doctors.