Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’

Speed Trap Shut Down

Residents of central Ohio fear and loathe the town of New Rome. Most people, including the state’s Attorney General, suspect it exists only to line the pockets of a few people who live in its three block radius. The tiny town (pop. 60) has a per capita income of $12,983, but takes in $300,000 a year in traffic tickets. (Take a virtual tour of the town here.) It’s almost impossible to pass through New Rome without getting stopped for a violation, be it speeding or a broken tail light.

Ohio residents can breathe easy now. New Rome was dissolved this week by court order. Sometimes, the system works.

Filed under: attorneys general, autos, Ohio

Location, Location, Location

Opponents of medical malpractice tort reform often argue that malpractice premiums are on the rise because insurance companies made bad investments, not because of out-of-control jury awards. But, if that’s so, then why do premiums vary so widely by geography? Consider the rates in Cleveland, Ohio, a city that can lay claim to some of the most aggressive trial lawyers in the state, as well as some of the most generous juries:

A comparison of standard, non-discounted rates the American Physicians Assurance Corporation charges in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan shows doctors in Cuyahoga County paying the highest rates in almost every category, and nearly double the Columbus tariff.

For instance, neurosurgeons in Cuyahoga County paid $212,000 annually, while their colleagues in Columbus paid $118,000 in malpractice premiums. Doctors in the high-risk specialties also paid about $20,000 less in Chicago and Detroit than their counterparts in Cuyahoga County.

‘The fact is, a day doesn’t go by when a Northeast Ohio doctor doesn’t get sued for multimillions of dollars,’ says Myers.

Filed under: Cleveland, Detroit, Illinois, medical, Michigan, Ohio

They Mind Very Much If You Smoke

Retired history professor, and former smoker, Robert Zangrando is suing his next door neighbor for smoking. The neighbor, who isn’t allowed to smoke inside her rented condominium, smokes outside on her patio, where the fumes evidently waft into the professor’s condo. The lawsuit, filed in January, was slated to begin this month, but has been delayed until September. In those intervening months, his neighbor has agreed to smoke in her backyard during only the first fifteen minutes of every hour. She’s also decided to move her family to a new neighborhood. Conflict resolved, right? Wrong. Zangrando is still pursuing his case. He’s charging her with battery and trespass and wants $50,000 in damages. The former smoker blames his neighbor’s smoking, not his own, for his declining lung capacity.

The report in the The Cleveland Plain Dealer notes that there has been an increase in these second-hand smoke lawsuits:

Secondhand smoke often leads to conflicts, and more than 420 lawsuits involving secondhand smoke have been filed in the last 25 years, according to research by Edward Sweda Jr., senior attorney for the Tobacco Control Resource Center at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

“There have been an increasing number of lawsuits in recent years that corresponds to people’s increased awareness of secondhand smoke and the physical harm it can cause,” he said, “and the gradually increasing societal disfavor of tolerating such exposure.”

Well, it’s not just due to an increased awareness, it’s also due to the work of legal activist groups like this one.

Filed under: Cleveland, Ohio, tobacco

Honor to Be Here

I’m honored to have been asked by Walter Olson to guest blog here at Overlawyered this week. For those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I’m a family physician in solo practice in Northeast Ohio. I usually blog at Medpundit on all topics medical. I’ll be confining my guest blogging here to ways in which the law touches the practice of medicine, which in this day and age of soaring malpractice insurance premiums and litigation is a touch too much.

Filed under: Ohio

NTSB says no defect, jury says $44 million

“Parker Hannifin Corp. of Cleveland, the world’s largest maker of hydraulic equipment, was told by a Los Angeles jury to pay $43.6 million to the families of three people killed in a 1997 SilkAir crash in Indonesia.

“The Los Angeles Superior Court jury yesterday determined that defects in a rudder control system caused the Boeing 737 to plunge from 35,000 feet, killing all 104 people aboard. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that there were no mechanical defects and the pilot intentionally caused the crash.” Boeing and SilkAir had already settled out, and the jury refused to apportion any fault to them. “‘We are incredulous,’ said Lorrie Paul Crum, a spokeswoman for Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin, who said the company will appeal. ‘This is the best case for tort reform I’ve seen yet.'” (“Parker Hannifin will appeal jury award”, Akron Beacon Journal, Jul. 8). “The trial established Parker Hannifin’s liability and relatives of about 30 other people will now go to trial in the same Los Angeles court to determine how much Parker Hannifin owes them in damages, [said Walter Lack of Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack, attorney for the families]”. Parker Hannifin says it plans to appeal. (“SilkAir crash: US firm told to pay US$44m”, Business Times of Singapore, Jul. 9).

Filed under: airlines, Cleveland, Ohio, product liability

Cleveland law firm breakup

Lurid allegations flew in a Cleveland courtroom after the breakup of medical-malpractice and personal-injury firm Kampinski & Mellino. A jury eventually ordered Charles Kampinski to pay almost $621,000 to Christopher Mellino, who had resigned from the firm. He can probably afford it: “Trial evidence indicated Kampinski earned about $36 million between 1997 and 2001 — $15.8 million in 2000 alone. Mellino, his longtime sidekick, raked in some $5.5 million over that span — peaking at $2.53 million in 2000 — under a pay scale that gave him 1 percent of the firm’s net fees for every year he worked there.” (Jim Nichols, “Ruling ends bad breakup of lawyers”, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jun. 18) MedPundit (Jun. 18) comments. Despite the Cleveland paper’s description of the law firm as “one of Ohio’s most successful personal-injury and medical-malpractice firms”, it does not boast a particularly high Google profile, currently scoring only a dozen or so hits under its former name.

Filed under: Cleveland, medical, Ohio

Pediatric orthopedic surgeon driven out of spinal surgery

In the complicated surgery to correct scoliosis, screws and rods are inserted and bone added into the spine. The risk of nerve damage or paralysis is such that there is something called the Stagnara wake up test, whereby the patient is woken during surgery to ensure she can move her feet. In 1999, however, Joshua Terry was one of the unfortunate 0.1% who was paralyzed during surgery. And, according to the newspaper account, his lawyer, Jay Kelley, found four surgeons to testify against defendant Dr. Ernest Lindell that “paralysis was not a potential complication” from surgery on the spine to correct scoliosis. A Lucas County, Ohio jury awarded $8.4 million to Mr. Terry and another million to his parents. And Dr. Lindell will no longer perform spinal surgery. (“Paralyzed area man wins $10M judgment”, Toledo Blade, Jun. 16; P. Stagnara, et al., “Functional monitoring of spinal cord activity during spinal surgery”, Clin. Orthop., 1973; 93: 173?8).

Read On…

Filed under: medical, Ohio

The Rule of Lawyers on radio

I’m scheduled to be a guest tomorrow morning (Tues.) at 8 a.m. EDT on Jim Blasingame’s “Small Business Advocate” nationwide radio show (more), and then at 10 a.m. EDT on Cincinnati’s WLW. And then on Wednesday from 11 to 12 a.m. EDT I’ll be the guest of Laurie Morrow on Vermont’s “True North Radio“. In each case I’ll be discussing my book “The Rule of Lawyers”, just out in paperback from St. Martin’s/Griffin (more).

If you’re a booker for a broadcast show or other news outlet, you’re aware that it’s at times like this, with books just reaching the stores, that authors and publishers are most eager to cooperate. To ask about appearances, contact Jamie Stockton at the St. Martin’s publicity department: 212-674-5151, ext. 502, or email me directly.

While we’re at it, you just know that The Rule of Lawyers would make an ideal Father’s Day gift, and Amazon (although its stocks are low) offers special shipping guaranteed to arrive by the weekend. It’s also available from Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and (hardcover) Laissez Faire Books.

Filed under: Cincinnati, Ohio, on TV and radio, The Rule of Lawyers, Vermont

Ohio reforms asbestos, silica litigation

A breakthrough? With Gov. Robert Taft’s signature, Ohio has now enacted the nation’s first legislation establishing medical guidelines for eligibility to file lawsuits over exposure to asbestos and silica (see Sept. 13, Nov. 12). Claimants not ill enough to meet the criteria will have their names placed on an “inactive docket” and will be allowed to proceed with suits if their physical condition worsens. The bill was a major objective of business and insurance groups and faced stiff opposition from trial lawyers, who’ve vowed to challenge it in court. (Jim Provance, “Taft signs bill curbing asbestos suits”, Toledo Blade, Jun. 4; “Taft signs law limiting lawsuits over lung damage from silica”, AP/Ohio News Network, Jun. 2). See also opinion pieces: Doug Bandow, “Asbestos Liability Should Be On Domestic Reform Agenda”, Investors Business Daily/Cato Institute, Feb. 20; “Finding an asbestos compromise”, Copley/TownHall, Apr. 26; Dana Joel Gattuso, “Asbestos Litigation Choking Courts with False Claimants”, Heartland Institute Environment News, May 1). More: Point of Law, Aug. 20.

Filed under: asbestos, Ohio

“Liability crisis ends century of deliveries”

Human interest: Family physicians Jim Schwieterman M.D., and Tom Schwieterman M.D., who are brothers, are “scheduled to deliver their last baby in September, stopping a more than 100-year run of their family bringing children into the world in Mercer County, Ohio.” Their practice in the rural town of Maria Stein dates back to their great-grandfather, and has never had a lawsuit payout. But obstetrics is a high-risk field legally speaking: their insurance company “was asking for $80,000 for the brothers to keep delivering the 60 or so babies a year that they average”, up 150% or so from six years ago. “And given how long their family has been in the community, neither wanted to move 20 miles west to Indiana where tort reform is established and rates would have been 75% less.” The brothers will continue in medical practice aside from obstetrics. (Tanya Albert, American Medical News (AMA), May 3).

Filed under: Indiana, medical, obstetric, Ohio