Frivolous Lawsuits.

[hardheadjarhead]

"Debridement" for those that don't know, means the surgical excision of dead flesh. From past accounts I've read, the patient screams during treatment. Perhaps they're better about using pain meds today.

Though I knew the meaning of the word, I looked it up, curious as to its etiology.

The ever present ad at the top said, "Get the most popular sites for debridement."


Regards,


Steve

 

[MartialArtist68]

Some people are so stupid. I've heard stories go so far as to say that some people will go to a grocery store, step pn a grape, and then lay down where they would have fallen, thereby faking an "accident". They would then slap the store with a lawsuit.

pk

 

[Nightingale]

debridement can also be done using maggots. they put sterile maggots on the skin and let them crawl around and eat the dead flesh. maggots will not eat live tissue, only dead, so they're ideal for cleaning out wounds. however, most people can't get over the ick factor.

 

[michaeledward]

Some people are so stupid. I've heard stories go so far as to say that some people will go to a grocery store, step pn a grape, and then lay down where they would have fallen, thereby faking an "accident". They would then slap the store with a lawsuit.

pk

. . . and we have all heard stories about jack planting a seed which grew into a stalk that allowed him to climb into the sky and meet a giant.

Do you have a case number for the story you present? Do you have a verdict?

We certainly welcome you contributions, but please support your arguments.

Mike

 

[michaeledward]

debridement can also be done using maggots. they put sterile maggots on the skin and let them crawl around and eat the dead flesh. maggots will not eat live tissue, only dead, so they're ideal for cleaning out wounds. however, most people can't get over the ick factor.

I saw maggots in the news the other day ... but because of the 'ick' factor, I wasn't actually going to read the article.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/08/02/maggot.medicine.ap/index.html

 

[Nightingale]

its a very interesting article!

 

[Taimishu]

Feisty Mouse
Thank you for the article.
There are points I was unaware of.

Steve Thanks for the clarification but if I was to put lets say a hot soldering iron under my arm to hold it what would that make me?
David

 

[Feisty Mouse]

David - you're welcome.

Nightingale -

debridement can also be done using maggots. they put sterile maggots on the skin and let them crawl around and eat the dead flesh. maggots will not eat live tissue, only dead, so they're ideal for cleaning out wounds. however, most people can't get over the ick factor.

I've heard of this before. THAT'S SO COOL!

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Feisty Mouse
Thank you for the article.
There are points I was unaware of.

Steve Thanks for the clarification but if I was to put lets say a hot soldering iron under my arm to hold it what would that make me?
David

It'd make you dumber than a box of rocks, David. But we also call that a fallacious analogy. In tort law they take into account the negligence of the maker of the product. Were the soldering iron to electrocute or burn you because of a defect in its construction, that would be a different matter. It is taken as a matter of course that people will accidentally spill coffee. It happens. When it happens seven hundred times, and injures a number of people seriously, and then the company in question knowingly does nothing about it...then we have actionable negligence.

Now as to the people who pretend to slip and fall on a grape, that isn't a frivolous suit. That is fraud. There is a difference. People who have made false claims and were caught doing it have been jailed.

I'm going to switch gears here and go find some actual examples of frivolous suits, so I can play Devil's Advocate to my own line of argument. But first I'm going to get lunch and a 145 degree fahrenheit cup of coffee.

Regards,


Steve

 

[PeachMonkey]

I respectfully choose to disagree with you. It is not a purely hypothetical situation. The facts of the case (which I made up on the spur of the moment) may be arguable, but the consequences are not.
Good physicians are being driven out of business or being forced to relocate to more reasonable states because of ungodly high malpractice premiums.

Actually, I still have not seen a direct link between the consequences that you claim, and the causes to which you attest them. It has been shown in earlier posts on this thread that malpractice limits do not stop malpractice insurance companies from raising their rates; the example used was California. Since this is the case, why do you blame the people suing for malpractice rather than the insurance companies themselves?

Try to find an Ob/Gyn in Nevada or Mississippi. You may have to drive up to 1 to 2 hours to get one. Want to do that while you're in labor?

I grew up in rural Colorado, an area where one easily had to drive two hours to find a *general practitioner*. This situation grew worse and worse over time because it is harder and harder to convince medical students to live in rural areas, not because of malpractice insurance. Why are you so sure that this isn't the case with your Nevada and Mississippi examples?

Your points about Medicaid and Medicare are best discussed in another thread, but I will point out that the greatest difficulties caused by these problems come when politicans step in to cut benefits, or when doctors commit fraud against them.

 

[Melissa426]

Actually, I still have not seen a direct link between the consequences that you claim, and the causes to which you attest them. It has been shown in earlier posts on this thread that malpractice limits do not stop malpractice insurance companies from raising their rates; the example used was California. Since this is the case, why do you blame the people suing for malpractice rather than the insurance companies themselves?


I grew up in rural Colorado, an area where one easily had to drive two hours to find a *general practitioner*. This situation grew worse and worse over time because it is harder and harder to convince medical students to live in rural areas, not because of malpractice insurance. Why are you so sure that this isn't the case with your Nevada and Mississippi examples?

Your points about Medicaid and Medicare are best discussed in another thread, but I will point out that the greatest difficulties caused by these problems come when politicans step in to cut benefits, or when doctors commit fraud against them.

Read this for an eye opener.


http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr07-16-04.cfm


This is a real crisis, IMHO.

I see you live in Indiana. (GO COLTS!!) Indiana is one of the few states where a malpractice awards cap is in place. Nonetheless, the Indiana legislature passed a increase of 70% for doctors malpractice insurance premium surcharge. But, because Indiana does have a cap in place, the states malpractice rates are still significantly and substantially less than most of the other states in the country.
If we have universal healthcare, who do you think is gonna be in charge? The politicians who step in and determine benefits, that's who.

 

[Melissa426]

I'm going to switch gears here and go find some actual examples of frivolous suits, so I can play Devil's Advocate to my own line of argument. But first I'm going to get lunch and a 145 degree fahrenheit cup of coffee.

Regards,


Steve

Here's a start!
http://espn.go.com/minorlh/news/2002/1112/1460051.html

Peace,
Melissa

 

[JAGMD]

Peachmonkey, once again I must disagree with you. Your argument that it is the insurance companies greed and not the trial lawyers fivolous suits that is raising premiums is wrong on its face. It is obvious because if the insurance companies were making so much money in this environment they would be falling all over each other to increase their market share. However, what is actually going on in my home state of FL and the other states mentioned earlier is that many insurance companies are leaving the state as far as offering medical malpractice insurance. As for your claim that medicare fraud by doctors plays any significant role in the problem is simply laughable. Even including all legitimate as well as fraudulent claims, physicians only take in only 3 cents of every health care dollar spent in this country. Fraudulent claims are a tiny fraction of this. There just simply isn't enough money involved to be significant. The real problem is that there is a huge incentive for a lawyer to bring a frivolous claim and no penalty for doing so. Trial lawyers take on average 40%(!) of the plaintiffs award, and all they have to do is convince 6 people with no medical education (who feel bad for someone who had a bad outcome) that the doctor must have made a mistake. Plus most insurance companies will settle for 150 K almost automatically, because it costs double to defend the physician who did nothing wrong. Thats an almost automatic 60K for filing almost any frivolous suit.
Let me go off on a tangent for a moment. Law is the only true profession left. The definition of a profession includes that the body be self-regulated. Doctors are regulated in the matter desricbed above, by lawyers and uneducated jurors. Lawyers only by other lawyers on ethics comittees. Doctors spend 3 times as long in training, and yet somehow don't get the right to be tried by a jury OF THEIR PEERS. (6 people who don't know their gluteus maximus from their olecranon are not our PEERS). Furthermore, I firmly believe that due to our difference in training, doctors could be far better judges of a lawyer's ethics than lawyers are of physician's medical judgement. The media has painted doctors as filthy rich people who constantly make mistakes and committ medicare fraud. Here's some facts: Doctors help far, far more people than they hurt. Doctors never intentionally hurt anyone, but are in fact human and not perfect. Doctors salaries have DECREASED 300% in the past decade. I am an anesthesiologist. If I had graduated in 1992, I would have made between 600 and 800 thousand per year. I graduated 2 yrs ago and had a starting salary of 170K working 80hrs per week. In fact the electrican I hired yesterday makes DOUBLE per hour than I do! Just so you know I saved 2 peoples' lives last week. My friend is a internist and billed his HMO patient $100 for a thorough medical exam. The HMO paid him 6 mos later the sum total of $14 for that exam. Imagine the electrician spending 40 minutes at my condo yesterday and asking me for $225 and I told him "here's a twenty, have a nice day". It wouldn't fly, but we do it to the doctors who save our lives every single day. Then the lawyers can sue us for everything we own without even a decent case.
But I digress, let me give you an example of a real case. Six months ago, my fiancee' was called for jury duty. A man presented to the ER with signs of a stroke. Every medical text will tell you to get a CT scan to determine whether the stroke is caused by bleeding or the blood clot blocking an artery. If it is the latter, the physician can administer a drug to break up the clot and if done quickly enough will resolve the stroke. However if you give that drug to the patient with the hemorrhagic stroke you will kill him immediately!!!! It turns out that this patient had the clot and the lawyer sued him saying thatif he hadn't sent the patient to CT scan first, the patient MIGHT have had a better outcome. (remember he might have also killed him if it was the other kind). This Dr. did everything by the book, exactly the standard of care. Yet he was sued for millions and had to spend tens of thousands defending himself in a six week trial during which time he also couldn't work costing him thousands more. If this case was brought up before a medical review pannel it would have been thrown out in seconds. Instead it took six weeks of trying to explain pathophysiology of cerebrovascular ischemia to average joes and janes. Luckily the jurors saw through the lawyer's B.S., but it still cost the Dr. close to 100K in legal fees and missed work (and he won!) At least he didn't lose everything. Can he sue the lawyer? Obviously, if the lawyer had done any research at all, he would have known the case had no merit right? He should be able to sue the lawyer for 100K at least, right? No, sorry, the LAWYERS decided that if the Dr could sue for this, then that would restrict plaintiff's ability and right to sue. Yes it would, It would RESTRICT it to cases WITH MERIT. At the very least we should cut the lawyer's take from 40% to something like 10% this would reduce the incentive to pursue BS cases. John Edwards made 150 million dollars by suing doctors. 150 MILLION. How many lives has he saved? I will never see ten percent of that. This country has turned to crap and it IS the lawyers fault! In 25 years we will have idiots caring for our lives, because people like me with an IQ of 160 will no longer choose to become doctors for obvious reasons. Then we will see how many medical mistakes there are and it will be the lawyers' fault then too!

 

[OULobo]

My opinion is that it is a combination of many of the things listed here. I'm not saying that because I want to be friendly to all causes, but instead I realize that the reason this is such a problem is that there is no easy one step solution, like capping or central health care, this is so because every one of the problems listed in this thread is a contributor on some level and each one has a separate and not necessarily compatible solution.

Lawyers are just taking advantage of a problem that exists. By taking huge percentages of the findings, they are in fact motivating the cases to increase the money at stake. The doctors are overworked and exist in an environment that tolerates no mistakes. Like most people they just follow the money or more importantly flee where there is a lack of it. There is an amount of abulance chasing and frivolous litigation that it still amazes me makes it past some judges. There is a ton of manuvering by insurance companies. They prod the doctors to preach to the patients about outrageous settlements just to give everyone a target that isn't them., while they raise rates regardless of payouts and tort reform. They figure the only things people generally hate more than insurance companies are tax men and lawyers, let everyone blame a lawyer for insurance costs and loss of good providers in the area. Cutting lawyers and lawsuits means more money in their pockets. They will never decrease the premiums now that it is up this high regardless of tort reform.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Here's a start!
http://espn.go.com/minorlh/news/2002/1112/1460051.html

Peace,
Melissa

Excellent example! Now can you find one where the lawsuit was justified?

Here are four more, taken from Snopes.com. All the cases were dismissed eventually, as I suspect the one above will be:

In March 1995, a San Diego man unsuccessfully attempted to sue the city and Jack Murphy Stadium for $5.4 million over something than can only be described as a wee problem -- Robert Glaser claimed the stadium's unisex bathroom policy at a Billy Joel and Elton John concert caused him embarrassment and emotional distress thanks to the sight of a woman using a urinal in front of him. He subsequently tried "six or seven" other bathrooms in the stadium only to find women in all of them. He asserted he "had to hold it in for four hours" because he was too embarrassed to share the public bathrooms with women.

A San Carlos, California, man sued the Escondido Public Library for $1.5 million. His dog, a 50-pound Labrador mix, was attacked November 2000 by the library's 12-pound feline mascot, L.C., (also known as Library Cat). The case was heard in January 2004, with the jury finding for the defendant.

In 1994, a student at the University of Idaho unsuccessfully sued that institution over his fall from a third-floor dorm window. He'd been mooning other students when the window gave way. It was contended the University failed to provide a safe environment for students or to properly warn them of the dangers inherent to upper-story windows.

In 1993, McDonald's was unsuccessfully sued over a car accident in New Jersey. While driving, a man who had placed a milkshake between his legs, leaned over to reach into his bag of food and squeezed the milkshake container in the process. When the lid popped off and spilled half the drink in his lap, this driver became distracted and ran into another man's car. That man in turn tried to sue McDonald's for causing the accident, saying the restaurant should have cautioned the man who had hit him against eating while driving.



Regards,

Steve

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Here are some other silly lawsuits that I came up with on a Google:

As a United States Senator, Rick Santorum has repeatedly supported limits on consumers' rights to seek compensation in the courts. In 1994, Santorum sponsored the Comprehensive Family Health Access and Savings Act that would have capped non-economic damages at $250,000. In a 1995 floor speech supporting damages caps, Santorum said, "We have a much too costly legal system. It is one that makes us uncompetitive and inefficient, and one that is not fair to society as a whole. While we may have people, individuals, who hit the jackpot and win the lottery in some cases, that is not exactly what our legal system should be designed to do."

But the same rhetoric does not seem to apply to Senator Santorum. In December 1999 Santorum supported his wife's medical malpractice lawsuit against her chiropractor for $500,000. At trial, the Senator testified that his wife should be compensated for the pain and suffering caused by a botched spine adjustment, claiming that she had to "treat her back gingerly" and could no longer accompany him on the campaign trail. After the verdict, Santorum refused to answer phone calls asking what impact the case had on his views of "tort reform." According to his spokesman Robert Traynham, "Senator Santorum is of the belief that the verdict decided upon by the jury during last week's court case of his wife is strictly a private matter. The legislative positions that Senator Santorum has taken on tort reform and health care have been consistent with the case involving Mrs. Santorum." In January 2000, a judge set aside the $350,000 verdict, deeming it excessive, and offered a reduced award of $175,000 or a new trial on damages only.

-------

As a member of the House Civil Justice and Claims Committee, Mark Flanagan was a major force behind severe tort restrictions that were enacted in Florida in 1999, sponsoring and co-sponsoring bills that protect manufacturers of defective products, while calling Florida "the most litigious society in the world."

But it was a different story when his own daughter fell from a daycare center's jungle gym and broke her leg in 1995. Flanagan sued both the day care center and the manufacturer of the jungle gym, alleging that the manufacturer "negligently and carelessly designed" the apparatus and that the preschool failed to properly supervise his daughter. Like many injured victims whose rights Flanagan's legislation decimates, the lawsuit alleged that his daughter suffered from "severe pain" and "lost the capacity to enjoy life." After 18 months of litigation -- and two months before his bid for re-election -- Flanagan settled for an undisclosed amount.

------

In April 1995, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) helped lobby for legislation that capped punitive damages, limited governmental and professional liability, undermined joint and several liability and decimated Texas' Deceptive Claims Practices Act.

Yet at the time this legislation passed, TLR Board members Leo Linbeck, Richard Trabulsi and Richard Weekley had themselves filed over 60 lawsuits either personally or as business owners. Between 1978 and 1995, Leo Linbeck's construction company was the plaintiff in at least 37 lawsuits. In one suit, which was settled confidentially, his company sued its own insurance company for triple damages stemming from the deaths of three workers in a construction accident. In another case, settled in November 1988, Linbeck sued for punitive damages.

By 1995, Board member Richard Trabulsi had also filed suit numerous times. In 1986, as the owner of Richard's Liquor and Fine Wines, Trabulsi sued Walgreen's to force it to stop selling alcohol in Texas. He also filed a personal-injury suit against his company in which the company prevailed. He told the Houston Post, "I have had access to the courts a number of times I had forgotten." As of 1995, TLR President and co-founder Richard Weekley, head of Weekley Properties and Weekley Development and a partner of David Weekley Homes, had sued six times; his companies had sued 14 times.

--------

Sterling Cornelius, owner of Cornelius Nurseries and Turkey Creek Farms in Houston and a trustee of the corporate front-group, Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), is one of the most vocal businessmen complaining about lawsuits and advocating tort restrictions in Texas. With the help and support of the Texas CALA group, Texas enacted a series of "tort reforms" in 1995, including caps on punitive damages and severe restrictions on lawsuits filed under Texas' Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

But in 1993, Sterling filed a $100 million lawsuit against DuPont, claiming that its fungicide, Benlate, damaged his companies' crop and nursery. Among the damages Cornelius sought were $75.3 million in punitive damages under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act as well as additional punitive damages. Because his lawsuit was filed before enactment of the 1995 legislation, his lawsuit was not affected by the "tort reforms" that passed.

---------

Source for the above:

http://civilliberty.about.com/gi/dy...=http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/4286


Regards,


Steve

 

[Feisty Mouse]

It's amazing that hypocrisy is so rampant!

 

[PeachMonkey]

JAGMD,

First off, thanks for the post. It is dense with information and food for thought, even though you and I don't see eye to eye. A little more spacing in your posts in the future might make them easier to parse and respond to

I'm not sure exactly why malpractice insurance companies are leaving states like FL. It is, however, a fact that malpractice insurance companies in TX and CA continued to raise their rates after tort reform. In the end, how does this help anyone other than the insurance companies' shareholders and executives? In fact, I would suspect that companies are leaving FL and other locales because of increased regulation of their behavior.

My comment about Medicare fraud was in response to an earlier mention of why universal health care was supposedly not feasible. Medicare fraud is actually quite rare.

Your other points about how difficult it is to defend against frivolous lawsuits are well taken; however, none of the problems you describe will be solved by the tort reform proposed by the Republican Congress. Trials will still be judged by non-educated peers. Lawyers will still take massive fees. Insurance companies will still fail to defend suits below a certain amount.

I have a hard time feeling badly for anyone with a starting salary of 170K, unfortunately, even though I'm sure with your hard work, training, education, and livesaving skills you deserve it. Many people who do lots of good for others will never see an income like that their entire lives.

HMOs can pay doctors so little because they negotiate contracted rates on a massive scale. This is a natural act in the free market that so many conservatives claim to worship. Many doctors who do not feel they are paid enough by HMOs refuse to take insurance clients, even in countries with national health services. Universal health care might even improve this situation, since a government-backed single-payer system eliminates the profit motive, allowing larger payments to doctors.

I never claimed that doctors were filthy, evil people... the vast majority save lives every day. Some doctors are scumbags, like in every profession. Even good people make mistakes. There has to be a way to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits without taking away the right of patients who have been incompetently treated to gain recourse.

Your comment about John Edwards is mainly tangential, but you will find an earlier mention in this thread of some of the serious, positive work that Edwards accomplished as a trial lawyer. Just as you claim doctors are unfairly excoriated, it is also unfair to paint all trial lawyers with the same brush.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

What Crisis?

GAO: Malpractice Premium Spikes Don't Force Out Docs

By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 16, 2003; Page HE01

The stories are legion: pregnant women unable to find doctors to deliver their babies because disgruntled obstetricians have closed their practices or retired in droves; white-coated physicians hitting the picket lines and threatening to shut down emergency rooms; desperate patients forced to travel long distances to find a specialist willing to perform lifesaving surgery.

The culprit, according to the American Medical Association (AMA) and President Bush: multimillion-dollar jury awards in malpractice cases that have resulted in insurance premium increases so huge that they are forcing doctors out of business and jeopardizing patients' access to health care.

But a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has reached a very different conclusion about the effect of rising malpractice premiums on consumers. Investigators who studied nine states found instances of localized but not widespread problems of access to health care mostly in "scattered, often rural, areas" that have long-standing problems attracting doctors.

And many of those highly publicized accounts of doctors who have retired or moved are, according to the GAO, either "not substantiated," temporary or involved only a few physicians...
-------

"....malpractice payouts decreased by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, doctors" premiums didn't go down.

Damage awards greater than $1 million decreased more than 10 percent between those years. Doctors" premiums weren't affected.

There's simply no correlation between lawsuits and insurance rates. Rather, insurance rates are tied to the climate of the stock and bond market, where insurance companies invest much of their money."

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/myth/RisingCostOfMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.htm

Regards,


Steve

 

[Melissa426]

Non-frivolous lawsuit?

OK, the 100 people who died in the fire in Rhode Island due to negligence of the club owner/band's pyrotechnic operator? Not only is that a non-frivolous lawsuit, I think whoever is responsible should be charged with manslaughter.

NOT A CRISIS?

This article is 2 years old, but it is about Las Vegas, not exactly a rural city.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/Daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11105

This is about Pennsylvania

http://www.concernedcitizensforcare.com/facts2.html


Good, qualified able students I believe will quit going to medical school, cause trust me, there's a lot easier ways to make good money without all the hassle (paperwork, especially, re:insurance companys), headache(sleepless nights),
heartache,(losing a patient you busted your butt to save) and hardship (3-10 years of training after medical school, making $30K if you are lucky. )

After all the debate, what I see is that it doesn't matter whose fault it is, skyrocketing malpractice rates are a real problem. Whether it is the doctor or insurance company, there needs to be a solution.

Those who say everything is fine with the current legal/justice system, I respectfully disagree with you.

Any ideas?

Peace,
Melissa