No tort reform needed. Really!

Jeffrey Parks Buckeye Surgeon (viaWhite Coat andKevin MD)

I was incredulous to read about thecase of the EMT service sued for negligence for transporting a pregnant woman to a tertiary care center in Florida. The woman went into laborin the ambulance and the heroic paramedics had to deliver a breeched 25 week-old baby and then resuscitate him en route to the hospital. The boy lived but ended up with cerebral palsy secondary to prolonged hypoxia during the delivery. The doctors and hospitals had both settled the case for $1.4 million. The EMT company didn’t feel it needed to settle, thinking there was no way they could lose at trial. They lost. And the verdict was for 10 million buckaroos.

Apparently, the plaintiffs attorney was able to successfully argue that the paramedics ought to have performed a thorough, independent evaluation of the pregnant mother prior to departure and then refused to transport her; in essence, they should have overruled the judgment of the physicians involved in the case. And they also ought to have resuscitated the child as well as any tertiary care NICU. Even though they weren’t physicians. While in a speeding ambulance.

But we don’t need tort reform, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Parks

Dr. Jeffrey Parks is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.

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Tags: Florida

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Right- no tort reform is needed–at least none as presented to us so far. First, you must keep in mind that the it was not the judge who made the final decision. It was 12 strangers–the jurors–who heard the plaintiff’s arguments AND heard the defense arguments AND heard from the plaintiff’s experts AND heard from the defense experts AND heard all other evidence from BOTH sides. Then they went into a room and came up with a unanimous decision.

You may disagree with the decision and perhaps even not know all the facts–which is often the case in the pro-Tort Reform discussions, but that is how our system of justice works.

The problem that should be avoided is that anecdotal events should play no parts in the policy making arena. I believe that one cannot make general policies based ONLY on exceptional cases. That always makes for bad law.

Why not discuss the merits of Insurance Reform and placing a cap on insurance premiums? I think that would be a better approach in making sure that the doctors are not gouged by the insurance companies who are all too happy to game the doctors and lawyers against each other- All doctors should remember that ONLY a negligent act that can be proven to have been a failure to follow the standard of care in the community in which the doctor practices is actionable and statistics show that less than 10% of actionable events end up in Court anyhow.

So yes, there is no need for Tort Reform as presented to us.

Comment by Taradji — July 6, 2010 @ 12:32 pm

It’s obvious that “Taradji” is a parasitic personal injury lawyer, just like the one who brought this groundless medical malpractice lawsuit in Florida, a state notorious for such lawsuits.

Sure, silver-tongued, John Edwards-like shysters often pluck the heartstrings of well-meaning jurors who have absolutely no medical expertise, convincing them to come back with absurdly high judgments. But this contributes significantly to runaway health care inflation in the form of defensive medicine and is thus contrary to the public interest.

Such verdicts contribute primarily to the tort lawyers’ financial interests, and that’s why the lawyers can write such big campaign checks to the Washington politicians who kept meaningful tort reform out of the new health care law.

While 12 ordinary men and women generally have enough life experience to judge whether a criminal defendant’s finger prints may have ended up on a murder weapon in a manner contrary to the prosecutor’s case, or whether the testimony of an alibi witness is sufficiently credible to result in reasonable doubt, it is all but impossible to expect such jurors to judge very complex and oftened nuanced issues of medical science and procedure (no matter how many episodes of “ER” and “House” they’ve watched). Add to this inherently problematic situation the fact that in many states expert witnesses for plaintiffs can be paid a percentage of winning verdicts, giving them an incentive to color their testimony, and we’re left with a recipe for injustice when it comes to medical malpractice litigation.

Polls consistently show overwhleming public support for commonsense medical liability tort reform. So, as health care costs continue to rise and the political pendulum swings again, rest assured the shysters will eventually be outgunned at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the health care law — if not repealed altogether — will be amneded to include such tort reform.

Comment by Darren — July 6, 2010 @ 2:05 pm

:) all foam and no beer.

Comment by Taradji — July 9, 2010 @ 2:47 pm