Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘noneconomic damages’

Medical tourism

Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, treated 58,000 American patients in 2005, and looks to treat 20 percent more this year. Why?

At Bumrungrad Hospital, [spokesman Ruben] Toral said, the lower cost of living is a major factor in the savings, but so are differences in how the medical system operates.

Doctors in Thailand pay about $5,000 a year for malpractice insurance, compared with more than $100,000 for some specialties in the United States.

Thai courts will adjudicate malpractice claims, but the largest award ever issued was about $100,000 and the law there doesn’t permit damages for pain and suffering.

(Mark Roth, “Surgery abroad an option for those with minimal health coverage,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sep. 10). Apparently the Thais haven’t heard the propaganda from the American trial bar that caps on non-economic damages don’t lower malpractice insurance premiums or medical expenses. And apparently, thousands of Americans prefer cheaper healthcare to the opportunity to recover pain-and-suffering damages: unfortunately, plaintiffs’ organizations fight very hard to ensure that American consumers don’t actually get that choice. (Via, of all places, Bizarro-Overlawyered, where one can almost see the smoke coming out of the ears of the posting blogger because of the “Does-Not-Compute” cognitive dissonance.)

Read On…

Filed under: , , , , ,

$1.6 million for loss of dog? Not so fast

Just as a media boomlet was getting started, a Clackamas County judge has ruled that Oregon law does not permit Mark Greenup and his family to seek loss-of-companionship damages over their neighbor’s having run over their mixed cocker spaniel-Labrador retriever, Grizz, an injury for which they were asking a cool $1.625 million. The case had been touted as a potential breakthrough in the campaign to authorize essentially unlimited monetary damages over the human unhappiness caused when a pet is killed or injured (see May 10, 2005, etc.) and advocates thought they had an unusually sympathetic fact pattern to work with: the Greenups’ neighbor, Raymond Weaver, had been convicted of first-degree animal abuse. Once the principle of damages for loss of companionship had been established, of course, it would be likely to spread to contexts where simple negligence was alleged on the part of veterinarians, drivers or animal handlers. Circuit Judge Eve Miller permitted the Greenups to seek punitive damages and intentional infliction of emotional stress against Weaver (who continues to deny that he harmed the dog intentionally) but said loss-of-companionship damages are barred by Oregon law. (“Judge rejects part of dog lawsuit claim”, AP/Roseburg (Ore.) News-Review, May 23; Steve Mayes, “Case Could Redefine Value of a Pet”, Newhouse/The Oregonian, May 23; “US neighbours in dead dog lawsuit “, BBC, May 23; letters to the editor, The Oregonian, May 24).

P.S. While we’re at it, what a very bad idea: federal mandates for pet evacuation plans.

Filed under: , ,

Jackpot in San Diego

Drivers of the Ford Explorer have a lower fatality rate than drivers of other vehicles — and a lower fatality rate from rollovers than drivers of other SUVs. The NHTSA found that there was nothing wrong with the Explorer’s design after a spate of well-publicized accidents resulted in an investigation. Nevertheless, plaintiffs persist in filing lawsuits accusing the Explorer of being unreasonably dangerous. And one can see why: Ford has successfully defended the vehicle in at least ten consecutive jury cases, but on Wednesday a San Diego jury rewarded the latest roll of the dice with a $122.6 million verdict for a paraplegic plaintiff, Benetta Buell-Wilson. Ms. Buell-Wilson was driving at a high speed on Interstate 8, when the RV in front of her lost a large piece of metal; she lost control of the SUV when she swerved, and the vehicle went off the highway and flipped 4 times before landing on the roof. The jury returns today to deliberate the question of punitive damages. (Ray Huard, “$123 million awarded in SUV rollover”, San Diego Union-Tribune, Jun. 3; Myron Levin, “Jury Orders Ford to Pay $122.6 Million”, LA Times, Jun. 3) (via Bashman). “This was an extremely severe crash, and any SUV would have reacted in the same way under similar circumstances,” Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said. “Our concern goes out to Ms. Buell-Wilson and her family, but this tragic accident was caused by a combination of high speed and a large metal obstruction in the road.” (“Verdict ends Ford streak”, Detroit News, Jun. 3). Ford says it will appeal; the jury awarded four times more than what plaintiffs asked for.

Update: Jury awards $246 million in punitive damages. Ford protests that it wasn’t allowed to introduce evidence to the jury comparing the safety record of the Explorer to other SUVs. (Reuters, Jun. 3; Myron Levin, “Jury Adds Punitive Award in Ford Case”, LA Times, Jun. 4).

Update: Judge reduces damages to $150 million; Ford has appealed. (Michelle Morgante, AP, Aug. 19; Nora Lockwood Tooher, “Explorer Rollover Yields $368.6 Million Verdict”, Lawyers Weekly USA, Dec. 30).

As with all my posts, I speak for myself and not my firm or any of my firm’s clients (which include Ford).

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Does tort reform affect insurance rates?

In my radio interview last week, I was asked about the Wisconsin Association of Trial Lawyers’ claim that tort reform measures have no effect on medical insurance rates. ATLA’s “fact sheet” on medical malpractice reform makes the same claim. A 2003 HHS compilation of studies on the matter, linked on our old medical page, refutes that proposition. (HHS, “Confronting the New Health Care Crisis”, Mar. 3, 2003 at Tables 6 and 7).

Read On…

Filed under: , , , , , , ,