Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘medical’

Radiology group expels member over testimony

“For the first time in its history, the American College of Radiology has expelled a member for giving inaccurate expert testimony. Dr. E. James Tourje, a neuroradiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, was expelled [last month] for violating the ACR code of ethics, which states that expert testimony should be nonpartisan, scientifically correct, and clinically accurate.” Dr. Tourje had testified on behalf of the plaintiff in two malpractice cases, both of which resulted in defense verdicts. (“‘Expert’ witness gets booted from ACR”, Diagnostic Imaging Online, Jul. 8; Arati Murti, “Stat Read: Election-Year Politics Push Medical Liability Skirmishes to Trenches”, Imaging Economics, Aug.).

In a case several years ago, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit gave impetus to the then-nascent trend toward professional self-regulation of expert testimony, writing in an opinion that “this kind of professional self-regulation furthers rather than impedes the cause of justice. More policing of expert testimony is required, not less.” (Russell M. Pelton, “Professing Professional Conduct: AANS Raises the Bar for Expert Testimony”, AANS Bulletin, Spring 2002. In the latest ABA Journal, Terry Carter discusses the controversy and in particular the formation of the Coalition and Center for Ethical Medical Testimony to promote efforts by associations to act against what Peter Huber has called malpractice by mouth. (“M.D. With a Mission”, ABA Journal, Aug., reprinted at CCEMT site)(PDF). The organized plaintiff’s bar is completely apoplectic about the trend: for its views, see Stephanie Mencimer, “The White Wall”, Legal Affairs, Mar-Apr.; Steve Ellman, “Code of Silence”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jun. 25, 2003.

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Another med-mal insurer collapses

This time it’s the Hospital Casualty Co. of Oklahoma, a subsidiary of the Oklahoma Hospital Association founded in 1977 by 12 local hospitals, capsized by nursing-home suits and by the general Sooner-get-sued atmosphere in its home state. Must have been mismanaged, our friends in the plaintiff’s bar will say. Earlier this year, the Physicians Liability Insurance Co., owned by the Oklahoma Medical Association and the state’s largest med-mal insurer, “was placed under formal supervision of the Insurance Department because the company didn’t have money to pay anticipated claims.” Another mismanaged outfit, no doubt. More details at Point of Law, where I also discuss the anguish felt by California insurance regulators over the relative lack of interest among low-income drivers in taking advantage of a scheme to rob Peter in Pacific Palisades to pay Paul in Pico-Union.

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“$112 Million Medical Malpractice Verdict Dismissed”

“A Brooklyn, N.Y., judge [last month] dismissed a $112 million medical malpractice verdict — the third-largest in the state’s history — saying a local hospital could not be blamed for an aneurysm that left a man a quadriplegic. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Melvin S. Barasch said that although the case was ‘one of the saddest’ he had heard, the jury had no rational basis for its verdict.” David Fellin’s lawyer had played the jury a “day-in-the-life” video of his disabled client “in a nursing home, where he needs constant care. He also told the jury about Fellin’s mother, whose life, according to Barasch, now revolves around visiting and caring for her son. The judge said the film ‘brought tears to everyone’s eyes.'” However, the judge said, that’s no substitute for showing that defendant Long Island College Hospital had negligently caused Fellin’s injuries, which he said the plaintiff’s side hadn’t shown. (Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, Jul. 15).

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Kerry malpractice plan

According to one of his health care advisers, the Massachusetts Senator actually supports “meaningful but enactable” malpractice reform, according to a new report. (Mark A. Hofmann, “Adviser says Kerry supports malpractice reform”, Business Insurance Daily News, Aug. 4). The Kerry campaign website has more (scroll down). George Wallace at Decs & Exs (Aug. 4) doesn’t think there’s much here that’s new, but we’re not so sure, especially on the punitive damages language and in the failure to raise federalism objections which ordinarily are front and center in Democratic resistance to liability reform at a national level.

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Somewhere in America

The medmal crisis isn’t just affecting doctors, it’s having an impact on nurses, too:

Kimberly Ridpath was shocked to learn earlier this year that the malpractice insurance policy for her 150 health care workers had been canceled.

In three years of supplying nursing homes with nurses and assistants, no lawsuits had ever been filed against her Mechanicsville firm, Advantage Staffing.

…The tension over the future of her company and its 150 employees took its toll.

“I cried. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep,” said Ridpath, a registered nurse.

(Could this be the woman Senator Edwards was talking about?) She eventually found a policy, at roughly ten times the price of her original. It’s the nursing home work that makes her company such a high risk. But the problem isn’t confined to nurses who staff nursing homes. Midwives and nurse practitioners, who often serve the underserved, are finding their malpractice insurance premiums rising, too. As result, they can no longer afford to staff public health clinics on the cheap as they once did. Tort reform. It really should be a bipartisan issue.

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