“A single woman who was denied treatment by a west Michigan in vitro fertilization clinic can proceed with a lawsuit claiming unlawful discrimination, the state Court of Appeals ruled in a decision released today. The case against Grand Rapids Fertility and IVF was filed after a doctor there told Allison Moon that his clinic could not provide the service out of concern that Michigan paternity law is so vague that a child conceived by IVF and born to a single mother could successfully sue the clinic for child support.” [Dawson Bell, Detroit Free Press] The appeals court said Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits services of public accommodation from discriminating on the basis of marital status among other grounds, extinguishes doctors’ common law right to decide with whom to undertake a physician-patient relationship. [Michigan Health Law Link]
Posts Tagged ‘medical’
Medical roundup
- View from Massachusetts General Hospital: drug shortages getting “dire” [WBUR, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Medical liability roundup: Sheriff arrives at Ohio doctor’s home to enforce $9.7 million award blaming lack of Caesarean section for cerebral palsy [TribToday] North Carolina legislature overrides Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto of liability limits [News & Observer via White Coat] Trial-lawyer-friendly Florida Supreme Court could strike down malpractice award limits in pending case [Orlando Business Journal]
- “Antitrust rules handcuff physician-led delivery models” [American Medical News]
- Relatedly, who was it who imagined anonymous denunciation of doctors was going to be a good idea? [Jay Hopkinson via Larry Ribstein]
- New Medicare paperwork threat to clinical trials? [Beck]
- Study: Elected coroners less likely to label deaths as suicide than appointed counterparts, family’s access to insurance benefits may be factor [Kevin B. O’Reilly, American Medical News]
- “Gee, why wouldn’t Obama administration want judges and “public interest” lawyers running its new health care law?” [Mickey Kaus on New Republic report]
“Process patents” at the Supreme Court
My Cato Institute colleagues have filed an amicus brief arguing against the spread of “a dangerous exception to traditional patent law… the Court should reject medical-diagnostic patents as impermissibly restricting the freedom of thought.” [Mayo v. Prometheus Labs; Ilya Shapiro, Jim Harper and Timothy Lee, Cato]
Update: “Court dismisses Duluth doctor’s lawsuit against patient’s son”
“A judge [last week] threw out a lawsuit filed by a Duluth physician who said he was defamed by a man who publicly criticized his bedside manner.” [Grand Forks Herald, earlier] More: Heller, OnPoint News.
“Plaintiff seeks phantom damages 6 times greater than actual costs”
According to the Colorado Civil Justice League, the decision by the state’s high court last fall in Volunteers of America v. Gardenswartz prohibits juries from learning the amounts actually paid, as opposed to “billed,” for medical services whose reimbursement is demanded in accident cases. The distinction is important because those who cover medical bills in practice (e.g., health insurers with their bulk buying clout) often pay much lower sums than the “rack rates” that hospitals and others officially charge (more on HB 1106, which would restore the evidence of paid as well as billed amounts).
P.S. As Jack Leyhane notes, the Colorado controversy is related to, though not identical with, the longstanding controversy over the “collateral source” rule, which provides that payments by third parties to a plaintiff over an injury will not reduce or offset the liability of a tortfeasor. “It is the lien or subrogation rights of third parties — [which] vary widely from state to state — that make sweeping generalities about the collateral source rule difficult to formulate.”
Not tonight, dear, I have a toothache
An Ontario no-sex-with-patients rule apparently bars dentists from fixing their own spouses’ teeth. [HealthZone.ca]
International human rights law roundup
Recent clips on a subject treated in much more detail in Schools for Misrule:
- Claim: Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s reforms to public sector labor law violate international human rights [HRW, Mirer/Cohn, FoxBusiness (views of Marquette lawprof Paul Secunda)] Related: UAW threatens charges against automakers [ShopFloor]
- Per some advocates, “right to health” has emerged as an “established international legal precept” even if it is “still to be fully embraced in the United States” [Friedman/Adashi, JAMA]
- GWB at risk of arrest if he visits Europe? Or are some of his enemies just posturing? “Bush trip to Switzerland called off amid threats of protests, legal action” [Atlantic Wire, WaPo, Daily Dish and more, Frum Forum, more and yet more]
- Oh, good grief: Tennessee solon “proposes law to make following Shariah law a felony” [Tennesseean] More states prepare to join unsound “ban all recogition of international law” movement [Ku, OJ] Background: Volokh.
- For those interested in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recently given a favorable nod by the Obama administration, a copy of the text is available here [CWB]
- “Conceptualizing Accountability in International Law and Institutions” [Anderson, OJ]
- Human rights initiative in UK: “Rapists and killers demand right to benefits” [Telegraph] European Court of Human Rights, Human Rights Acts “merely pretexts for judicial activism, argues Alasdair Palmer” [Telegraph]
- Claim: U.S. is odd-country-out in international law. Reality check please [Bradford, Posner et al, OJ]
- Opponents charge trying Pennsylvania 13 year old for murder as adult could violate international law [AI]
“Duluth man fights defamation suit by doctor he criticized”
Dennis Laurion took to the web to criticize a doctor he said had behaved in a rude and insensitive manner toward his family during the treatment of his elderly father. The doctor sued for defamation, and a judge is considering whether to allow the suit to proceed. [Duluth News Tribune and more]
JAMA: back surgeries overprescribed
Commenter “Anonymous Attorney” writes:
Part of the litigation explosion includes every other person with a back injury claim being sent for invasive “fusion” or other drastic spinal surgery. Of course, defendants, often through insurance, foot the bill for these very expensive procedures. In my time I saw dozens of cases involving, say, a 5-mph fender bender that resulted in these surgeries. It was almost as if plaintiff attorneys and doctors worked together to push them through because they would multiply damages 5-fold for the lawyer, and of course the doctor gets paid handsomely, too. The cost of some surgeries can approach $100,000. A few doctors were known for never seeing a patient who didn’t “need” these surgeries. Courts and juries, of course, take anything a doctor says on its face, and so they’d go along.
A study in JAMA now confirms these are grossly overprescribed and often a really bad idea, medically. Note that this particular study excluded patients admitted as a result of vehicle crashes or with vertebral fractures or dislocations, which nonetheless leaves many other injuries that can fit the pattern: slip-falls, workers comp back strains and so on. I think it’s safe to say that if the JAMA authors ever do a study looking at car crash plaintiffs, they’ll make similar findings.
By the way, the New York Times actually beat JAMA to the punch on some of this, like the doctors owning financial stakes in the surgical equipment companies.
“States fear that five words in Obama health law will open door to lawsuits”
“Tucked away on page 466” is a provision that quietly replaces states’ obligation to make sure doctors are paid to deliver services to the poor with a new obligation to make sure the services are in fact delivered. “‘With the expanded definition, it leaves every state vulnerable to a new wave of lawsuits any time someone cannot access a service, even if that service is limited by virtue of the rates we pay,’ said Alan Levine, Louisiana’s secretary of health and hospitals, in a recent memo prepared for fellow state government officials.” [Jon Ward, Daily Caller]