Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘medical’

November 28 roundup

All-medical edition:

  • Shocker for New York docs: possible assessment of $50K apiece to make up losses at nonprofit med-mal insurer [White Plains Journal-News Chamber reprint]

  • Dr. Ray Harron, a central figure in furor over mass asbestos and silicosis screenings, seems rather hard to locate at the moment, though he does have a lawyer speaking on his behalf [NY Times, WV Record]

  • Another push to raise the threshold of liability for emergency room care in Arizona [AZ Business Gazette]

  • End run around Roe? Some state legislatures attaching sweeping new tort liabilities to the provision of abortions [Childs]

  • Three nominees for worst-founded medical lawsuit, lamentably unsourced [Medical Justice]

  • Spokane psychiatrist shouldn’t have engaged in romantic (though not sexually consummated) dalliance with forty-ish patient; that much is clear. But should she now get cash? [AP/Seattle Times]

  • “Baby falls to floor during home delivery, mom sues hospital for too-early discharge” [SE Texas Record]

  • A sensitive subject: malpractice and doctors’ suicides [KevinMD, a while back]

  • “If the ‘loser pays’ system is so bad, why do most other countries keep it around instead of switching over to an ‘Americanized’ system of tort law?” [WhiteCoat Rants]

  • Hospital, ambulance service among those sued after fatal crash of NFL’s Derrick Thomas [seven years ago on Overlawyered]

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Varieties of (medically hazardous) religious experience

In both of which cases the hospital is being targeted for blame:

About a year ago, Linda Long was attending the East London Holiness Church in London, Ky. That’s one of a handful of churches in the country that practice snake handling, which is exactly what it sounds like it is — congregation members handle venomous snakes in the belief that the faithful will not be harmed.

Long was bitten in the cheek by a rattlesnake and died — and now her family is suing the hospital where she was brought for treatment.

In a suit filed earlier this month, Long’s family alleges employees of a London, Ky. hospital ridiculed Long when she was brought there after the attack and failed to treat her in a timely manner. She later was airlifted to the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where she died.

(“Family of ‘snake handling’ victim sues hospital”, USA Today “On Deadline” blog, Nov. 9; Michelle Cottle, New Republic “The Plank”, Nov. 11).

Meanwhile, in Britain, Anthony Gough, 24, says he is considering legal action in the death of his wife, Emma, following the birth of twins at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. The Goughs are members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect which opposes blood transfusions on religious grounds and Emma had refused such a transfusion; doctors had in vain urged Gough to override his wife’s wishes. Gough says a machine would have permitted self-transfusion of his wife’s blood but that hospital staff did not know how to use it. (Andrew Parker, “Jehovah hubby: I blame doctors”, The Sun (U.K.), Nov. 7)

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“No liability for doctor who revived newborn”

The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that doctors in Vancouver, Wash. can’t be held liable for resuscitating a baby after he was born without a heartbeat. The parents said the medics had wrongly failed to ask their permission before saving the child’s life. The infant survived but with severe disabilities. (AP/Seattle Times, Nov. 8; “State high court: No liability for doctor who revived newborn”, AP/KOMO, Nov. 8; opinion with first and second concurrences, all PDF).

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Harris v. Mt. Sinai Medical Center: Geoffrey Fieger loses

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.

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Sorry, doc, your personality is uninsurable

More malpractice insurers are requiring doctors to take personality tests or their equivalent: “Doctors who fare ‘poorly’ on the assessment [at Iowa-based United Medical Liability Insurance Co.] have to go through a coaching session, at no cost to them, on how to improve their communication skills if they want coverage.” (Amy Lynn Sorrel, “Medical liability insurers adding personality tests to application process”, American Medical News, Oct. 1)(via KevinMD). Related: Apr. 12.

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Sues over having twins

An Australian woman asked that her in vitro fertilization (IVF) result in a single baby but two embryos were mistakenly implanted. Now she wants $A400,000 for the cost of raising the child to adulthood. (“Mother sues doctor over twin birth”, ABC (Australian) News, Sept. 18)(via KevinMD). The local branch of the Australian Medical Association says the law should be changed to prevent damage claims over the birth of unimpaired babies: “We’re very concerned [at] the concept that a healthy life is wrongful.” (“Doctors should not be liable for mistake births: AMA”, Sept. 22). More on wrongful birth lawsuits here.

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A conversation in the ER

Covering one’s legal posterior in emergency medicine: “This ER doc was about to turn an $800 ER visit into a $4,000 hospital admission. Now imagine this happening all over the country in multiple variations and degrees of absurdity tens of thousands of times EVERY DAY.” (Chris Rangel, Sept. 27). Plus: London ambulance driver visits San Francisco, is chagrined to see paramedics engage in elaborate immobilization of minor collision victim (Random Acts of Reality, Aug. 14 and Aug. 16; via KevinMD).

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Medical expert cops plea deal

Miami surgeon Dr. Alex Zakharia was indicted by a federal grand jury last year on perjury, mail fraud and wire fraud charges in connection with his testimony in a Michigan medical malpractice case (KevinMD, Dec. 2). Now Zakharia has pleaded guilty to contempt of court and admitted false statements as part of a plea deal to resolve the charges. Reports the Ann Arbor News (Sept. 18):

Authorities said he testified as an expert witness in 2002 on behalf of a plaintiff charging a doctor at the VA with medical malpractice in connection with a coronary artery bypass graft.

He admitted that during the deposition, he falsely bolstered his credibility as an expert by creating the impression that he was the lead surgeon for numerous coronary artery bypass grafts – when he never conducted such surgeries, officials said.

More: Miami Herald; Expert Witness Blog; U.S. Attorney press release (PDF).

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