We’ve been on top of this outrage of a medical malpractice case since it was in trial—Aug. 2004, Oct. 2004, Nov. 2004, May 2006, Apr. 12—but Roger Parloff has such a comprehensive post about the Ohio Supreme Court’s 5-1 (corrected:) 6-1 decision to strike down an intermediate court’s reinstatement of a bogus $30 million verdict that we defer to him. Even the dissenter would have found Fieger’s shenanigans problematic, but would have merely reduced the award to $10 million. Still, on remand for a new trial, Justice Paul Pfeifer recommended that “it would be wise for the trial judge to deny any motion for admission pro hac vice filed on behalf of Mr. Fieger.”
NB that among the tactics condemned by the Ohio Supreme Court are the tactics that trial lawyer John Edwards used when he successfully tried a medical malpractice case—pretending to channel the baby in the womb to the jury.
Among the victorious attorneys: one of our favorite bloggers, Mark Herrmann.
2 Comments
The court opinion, http://fortunelegalpad.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/2007-ohio-55871.pdf , is suspect.
The court states “The trial court also found that counsel exceeded the bounds of zealous advocacy by accusing the witnesses for the defense of ‘prevarication’ and making this a theme for his entire case despite having no evidence of cover-up.”
This sentence is illogical. A person may prevaricate without engaging in a cover-up. Prevarication as applied to witness may simply refer to equivocation, quibbling or even tergiversation.
It seems to me that the appellate court just didn’t know what “prevarication” was. Thinking it met “lying” or “cover-up”, they wrongly sanctioned counsel for his use of that word.
[…] least some doctors are hoping to discern such a trend on the strength of two data points: the case Ted has covered in which the Ohio Supreme Court struck down a $30 million verdict because of the shenanigans of […]