Our sister website has published numerous posts this month on medical malpractice issues, including a modest proposal for doctors to make money by suing each other; certificates of merit, done right; what kind of insurance premiums one law prof doesn’t find shocking; more and yet more on anonymous medical experts; a Flash animation game on med-mal; in search of a few bad ob/gyns; and commentaries by Ted Frank and Jim Copland on Maryland’s crisis.
Posts Tagged ‘Maryland’
Fall speaking schedule
I’ll be speaking this evening (Thurs. Sept. 30) in Baltimore as part of a dinner-hour panel discussion on medical malpractice reform sponsored by the Chesapeake Lawyers’ Chapter of the Federalist Society. Other events scheduled for this fall (sponsored by the Federalist Society unless otherwise specified):
* Mon. Oct. 11, Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, Calif.
* Tues. Oct. 12, Chapman Law School, Orange, Calif. (lunch) and Trinity Law School, Santa Ana, Calif. (late afternoon)
* Thurs. Oct. 14, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C., Legal Reform Summit, debating Bob Levy of Cato on federalism and litigation reform
* Wed. Nov. 10, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., commenting on publication of Bob Levy’s new book Shakedown
* Fri., Nov. 12, Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Washington, D.C., panel discussion on regulation by litigation with (among others) former Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert Young, Jr.;
* week of Nov. 15 (exact date TBA), Fordham Law School, New York City.
To inquire about our availability for speaking engagements, email editor – at – [this-domain-name] for me or tedfrank – at – [this-domain-name] for Ted.
Malpractice insurance: around the country
In West Virginia, insurer NCRIC was paying out $1.07 in claims for every $1 in premiums collected; it almost left the state until regulators allowed them to raise rates to make up the difference. Of course, some doctors can’t afford the new rates, and have had to stop practicing at hospitals and nursing homes that require insurance. ATLA once again blames the insurance companies for failing to invest premiums in such a way to pay the rising claims. The insurer’s problems were exacerbated when a D.C. jury levied a $18 million countersuit verdict against NCRIC when it tried to collect $3 million in unpaid premiums from the defunct Columbia Hospital for Women Medical Center. (Dina ElBoghdady, “D.C. Malpractice Insurer Feels Squeeze”, Washington Post, Sep. 6).
In Illinois, the political debate continues over the need for tort reform, as doctors continue to flee the state. Ed Murnane, of the Illinois Civil Justice League, notes that 40% of the doctors in St. Clair and Madison Counties have been named as defendants in lawsuits between 2000 and 2003; even though the overwhelming majority of plaintiffs collect nothing from such cases, the costs of defense are high. (Mark Samuels, “Group: Tort Reform Can Stop Malpractice Crisis”, The Southern, Sep. 3; Rob Stroud and Herb Meeker, “Illinois physicians say insurance rates are driving them out of state”, Journal Gazette/Times-Courier, Sep. 3).
An editorial signed by 25 Washington County, Maryland doctors protests the legislature’s failure to reform the medical malpractice system. (“Lawsuits will drive doctors away”, The Herald-Mail, Sep. 5).
In Nevada, the trial lawyers groups are trying to obstruct reform by putting forward faux reform measures on the initiative ballot that would wipe out the real reform measure, Question 3. For example, Question 5, proposes penalties for filing or defending “frivolous” lawsuits–but redefines “frivolous” to narrow the classification as to be meaningless. At the same time, it bars the legislature from ever implementing caps. An earlier attempt to stop Question 3 with a last-minute lawsuit failed. (Tanya Albert, “Nevada tort reform ballot fight now brewing”, American Medical News, Sep. 13; AP, Aug. 25; No on 4 and 5 website).
Washington state doctors are traditionally politics-free, but the medical malpractice crisis could change that and force them to lobby for the reform Initiative 330. “‘Physicians in the main have an aversion to mixing politics with their professional medical practice,’ said Dr. Kevin Ware, president of the county medical society. ‘But under the current circumstances, the need for malpractice insurance reform is so desperate that physicians are having to look seriously at departing from that custom.'” (Sharon Salyer, “Doctors may lift ban on politics”, The Herald, Sep. 6; Wallace blog, Aug. 31).
Wyoming has lost 10 percent of its doctors in the last eighteen months, and the state’s largest malpractice carrier will stop renewing policies October 1. A constitutional amendment is necessary for reform there. (Lee Lockhart, “Lawmaker predicts heated debate over damage caps”, Casper Star Tribune, Aug. 27).
They Came To Stay II
We previously covered the surprising side effect of legal reforms to protect tenants against landlords: homeowners in Florida discovering that a friend or relative invited as a guest gets to leave only when they want to leave without expensive litigation to evict them (Feb. 19). This had tragic results in Montgomery County, Maryland last week. 71-year-old Joyce Hadl charitably allowed a homeless woman, Susan L. Sachs, to stay with her rent-free in exchange for work around the house. According to a friend of Hadl’s, when Sachs started exhibiting signs of mental illness, “walking around the house and calling Hadl insulting names”, Hadl became alarmed and tried to get her to leave, but police called to the home concluded that they could not legally remove her. Hadl has since disappeared, and Sachs is now under police custody, having been charged with her first-degree murder. (David Snyder and Amit R. Paley, “New Arrests in Disappearance”, Washington Post, Aug. 26).
The “litigatory equivalent of road rage”
Regarding a dispute between a townhouse owner and his homeowners’ association: “Their quarrel, which began over a basketball hoop and a parking space, has resulted in at least four separate actions, with an intimation of more to come. At a loss as to why so little has generated so much conflict, we can only surmise that we are in the middle of what may be the litigatory equivalent of road rage. The number of actions, the sheer ferocity with which they have been pursued, and the inconsequential nature of what has been sought offer us little hope that we are wrong in this assessment.” — Maryland Court of Special Appeals in Campbell v. Lake Hallowell Homeowner’s Association (PDF) (via Dave Stratton, Insurance Defense Blog, Jul. 19).
More on Racial Profiling
Last night I mentioned some of the difficulties in trying to justify racial profiling on the grounds of efficient policing. I just wanted to add a few more comments. First, in my paper with Mike Alexeev, our generally anti-profiling “results” apply to situations where the probability of being stopped is relatively low, as it is in standard highway enforcement. If the police can stop a substantial proportion of folks (a’ la airport screening), then our results are not applicable. Second, choosing whom to stop is the first stage, but as or more important is the next stage, how those who are stopped are treated. Is the stop limited in time and intrusiveness? (Here’s one way not to treat people.) Further, is the goal that ostensibly is being served actually benefiting from the profiling? In a fine paper that looks very closely at Maryland’s I-95 stops, Samuel R. Gross and Katherine Y. Barnes attack Maryland’s stop-and-search policy partly on the grounds that it accomplishes essentially nothing in impeding the flow of drugs to Baltimore and Washington, DC. Third, I am almost ashamed to admit that my own views on racial profiling changed a bit when I found myself to be a “profilee.” (I briefly recounted the tale during an earlier guest-blogging appearance at Crescat Sententia — oh no, I don’t want to develop a reputation as someone who blogs around!) Funny how it is easier to suport a policy (our drug war comes to mind) when you are pretty sure that you and yours will not bear the costs of it.
Racial Profiling
Should the police use race as one of the characteristics upon which they make decisions about stopping and searching motorists or pedestrians? (The question assumes, of course, that the police are not operating from a description of a specific individual believed to be involved in a crime.) Among those who have answered “no” to a question of this sort is our nation’s Attorney General. Others think that the practice is OK, as long as it is consistent with efficient policing: after all, you wouldn’t want to focus lots of law enforcement on groups that are rare offenders, such as elderly women. But is it right that a black driver on I-95 in Maryland in the late 1990s was five times more likely to be subject to a search than was a white driver?
Those who take the “efficient policing” position often say that the disproportionate number of stops is OK, as long as the probability that a searched motorist is carrying contraband (in the case of anti-drug enforcement, the aim of most of the highway searches) is about the same for blacks as for whites. (This probability is sometimes called the “hit rate.”) By this reckoning, if only 5 percent of the blacks who are searched are found to be carrying drugs, while 20 percent of the whites searched are carrying, then the racial disparities in searches are not consistent with efficient policing and should be curtailed, eliminated, or reversed. On the other hand, if the hit rate for searches is about 20 percent for both groups, then the use of race as an indicator might be acceptable.
But I and my co-author, Michael Alexeev of Indiana University, think that this standard “efficient policing” story is mistaken, for reasons that I will mention after the “Continue reading…” link.
Baltimore Sun on obstetrics
Who’s going to be left delivering babies? Maybe foreign medical graduates, who still perceive themselves as having fewer options than the U.S.-born medical students who are increasingly steering clear of obstetrics as a specialty. Of course there’s also the option of departing a state like Maryland, where the prevailing insurance premium for an ob/gyn is slated to rise this year to $160,130, and starting up practice instead in a state like Wisconsin, where tough tort reforms keep the corresponding figure to an average of $45,000 to $50,000, according to Dr. Douglas Laube, head of an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists panel on obstetrics residency. (Jonathan Bor, “Obstetrics is failing to draw new doctors”, Baltimore Sun, Jul. 11).
Ups and downs of a $2.5 million verdict
Roller coaster, indeed: Maryland’s highest court has thrown out a jury’s $2.5 million verdict against the operator of the Six Flags amusement park at Largo over a 1999 incident in which park employees told a family that their 4-year-old daughter did not meet the height requirement for the Typhoon Sea Coaster ride. The family refused to get off the ride and there ensued an altercation with park employees which resulted in several family members being handcuffed and led away to security — none were apparently seriously hurt — before being let go an hour later. How did a dispute of this magnitude snowball into a $2.5 million jury verdict? Well, it seems that although the original charges against the park operators did not make an issue of race, lawyers for the plaintiffs (who are African-American) had repeatedly played up racial angles before the Prince Georges County jury. Finding “a significant probability that the verdict was influenced by improper and irrelevant insinuations by their attorneys and certain of their witnesses of racial discrimination by alleged employees of the corporate defendant,” the court ordered retrial (“Court of Appeals overturns $2.5 million award in Six Flags suit”, AP/InsideBaltimore, May 17; CoasterBuzz, May 18; Tierco v. Williams, opinion in PDF format)(via Insurance Defense Blog, Jun. 1). Just to guarantee the burning up of even more resources, the case spawned insurance coverage litigation (PDF) in Delaware.
Great moments in economic regulation
With soaring gasoline prices beginning to cause economic hardship, Minnesota’s Commerce Department is cracking down on gas stations for charging prices that are too low. “The state adopted a law in 2001 that bars gas stations from selling gas without taking a minimum profit. These days, stations must charge at least eight cents per gallon more than they paid. The Commerce Department is now issuing its first fines for breaking the law. It fined Arkansas-based Murphy Oil $70,000 for breaking the law at its ten state stations, which are based at Wal-Mart stores,” and also fined one Kwik Trip station. (“Commerce Department Cracks Down on Under Priced Gas”, KARE11.com (Minneapolis-St. Paul), May 29)(via Truck and Barter). Another example, from Maryland: May 21, 2005.