We had a chance to watch President Obama’s news conference earlier today and it got us thinking. Will the following wording expose physicians to more risks, this is directly from the White House: PRESERVE THE RIGHTS OF HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS TO PROTECT THEIR PATIENTS AND COMMUNITIES FROM GUN VIOLENCE: We should never ask doctors and […]

The American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) released its 2012/2013 Judicial Hellholes report last month. The annual release documents abuses of the civil justice system in jurisdictions the pro-tort reform group says are among the most unfair and out-of-balance in the nation. The ATRF is a branch of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), an umbrella […]

This is a bizarre story in which a court in Marseilles, France has convicted a French psychiatrist, Daniele Cararelli, of manslaughter, b/c her patient committed a murder. Her patient murdered an 80 year old man 20 days after fleeing a consultation with the doctor. The doctor was sentenced to 1 year in prison and ordered […]

On Dec. 13, 2012, the Michigan Legislature passed two bills pertaining to medical professional liability. Senate Bill 115 caps recoverable non-economic damages at $280,000 and reduces the total amount of future damages to present values at a rate of 5 percent per year, compounded annually, for each year in which those damages accrue. Senate Bill […]

Defensive medicine has become an increasingly common practice, particularly in the United States, where malpractice litigation is most common. It takes two distinct forms: avoidance and assurance. In an avoidance mode, the practitioner simply opts not to practice medicine in a field that is prone to high levels of litigation, is inherently high-risk or where […]

On Oct. 31, the Indiana Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state’s Patient Compensation Fund (PCF)—established to cover excess damages in medical malpractice cases—may not dispute the existence or cause of a plaintiff’s injury in a case in which the medical providers previously settled the claim, admitting liability. The decision, Robertson v. B.O., has led […]

side note: Here is what might be a conclusion to the flagrant medical malpractice case in Nevada where potentially hundreds of patients were exposed to hep c. A district judge Monday approved a settlement of 18 medical malpractice lawsuits stemming from the Las Vegas hepatitis C outbreak. The settlement with 18 former patients of the […]

Editor’s note: Today’s blogpost was initially published in the November 2012 issue of Medical Liability Monitor, the industry’s premier source for consistent, reliable coverage and fresh perspectives on medical professional liability insurance and risk management issues. Click on the preceding hyperlink to visit the Monitor’s website, where subscription information is available. by Paul Boylan In […]