Can any state rival Kentucky for keeping physicians in the headlines in recent days? Three big stories in a five-day span:
On October 30 the Franklin Circuit Court struck down as unconstitutional a new Kentucky statute...more
Lancet Indemnity’s $1 M med mal policy had a standard clause requiring the insured, Dr. Ishtiaq Malik, to cooperate and assist Lancet and appointed counsel in investigating and defending claims. But when the family of...more
The Imagination-in-Pleading Award for September goes to plaintiff Willie Pearl Smith for her lawsuit against the Hospital Authority of Cobb County, Georgia, and related entities in connection with the death of her daughter,...more
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but tort reform still smells bad to traditional opponents despite an attractive title. That’s why most observers believe that the House-passed “Protecting Access to Care Act,”...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld Nebraska’s statutory medical malpractice limit, rejecting attacks that were based on the Seventh, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution.
After a...more
Dr. Steven Svabek may have set a record for the number of reasons why his tail policy didn’t cover the medical malpractice claims against him.
According to a memorandum decision issued last week by the Indiana Court of...more
State limitations on medical malpractice recoveries seem to be under almost daily attack. The latest serious threat comes from Louisiana, where a federal district court has authorized an interlocutory appeal of his ruling...more
On April 7 the Indiana Supreme Court handed the plaintiffs’ bar a solid victory in the six-year battle that has raged since issuance of the 2011 Indiana Court of Appeals decision in K.D. v. Chambers. That decision was...more
March 23 saw a rare spectacle in the courtroom of the Indiana Supreme Court: lawyers for a medical malpractice case plaintiff, supported by the Indiana Trial Lawyers as amicus, and lawyers for the physician defendant in the...more
In Indiana a medical malpractice plaintiff doesn’t proceed directly to court. First, a proposed complaint goes to the Indiana Department of Insurance, and the case is heard by a Medical Review Panel consisting of physicians....more
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A Florida Supreme Court decision provides a variation on the adage: if a contract looks too favorable to one side to be valid, it probably isn’t.
Thirty-nine weeks...more
At first glance it looks like a “Man Bites Dog” headline. The hospital insists that the patient was injured by professional negligence; the patient vehemently disagrees. The argument goes all the way to the state court of...more
A recent study of state apology laws by three Vanderbilt University researchers concludes, among other things, that “from the perspective of physicians, apology laws are almost certainly detrimental,” increasing the frequency...more
Brandi’s parents allege that they rushed her to the Opelousas General Hospital ER and asked Dr. Z to administer stroke medication, but Dr. Z declined, administering anti-seizure medication instead. Frustrated, they...more
Why would a hospital and one of its physicians demand that a case against them be branded a malpractice case? Why would they sue the trial court to force it to call the action a malpractice case? A recent Nevada case...more
Dr. Steven Nathanson is the defendant in a medical malpractice case involving the death of a patient. On June 24 the court rejected his motion for summary judgment on his claim that punitive damages are barred by West...more
A September 29 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court effectively makes a health facility liable for the professional negligence of a medical staff member who doesn’t have malpractice insurance or who has insurance that...more
Here’s an interesting riddle. When a plaintiff sues a hospital for an injury, why would the hospital insist the injury was caused by malpractice? Even more puzzlingly, why would the plaintiff insist she was not the victim...more
Last week the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an opinion addressing the issue whether an indemnification claim is subject to that state’s medical malpractice statute of limitations, when the claim is for recovery of a...more
Last week in a medical malpractice case in Alabama, a federal court denied the plaintiff’s motion to compel production by a hospital of the defendant doctor’s personnel file. The plaintiff believed that the file could show...more
Lawyers for Chicago’s Mercy Hospital found that out Monday when a federal court ruled on their claim of peer review privilege for hundreds of documents sought by the plaintiff in a malpractice case. The court blasted the...more