Plaintiff attorneys and healthcare/business leaders in Colorado recently filed competing ballot initiatives that will ask the state’s voters to decide in November the amount of recoverable damages in catastrophic injury and wrongful death lawsuits, whether certain records are accessible in medical malpractice litigation, whether to cap attorney fees at 25% of recovered damages, and whether […]

A bill that would end a Florida law denying recoverable damages for certain wrongful death medical liability claims and impose noneconomic damage caps on medical malpractice awards cleared a key hurdle last month when it was approved by the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee. Florida Statute §768.21(8) currently restricts the recovery of damages in wrongful death […]

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed for a second time the Grieving Families Act (GFA), a bill that would have expanded recoverable damages in wrongful death claims to include noneconomic damages. Under the current 177-year-old law, compensable damages in wrongful death actions are limited to economic loss only. New York and Alabama are the only […]

Peace of mind is important when you’re caring for patients. Medical malpractice insurance protects you from lawsuits alleging negligence or mistakes, but understanding the details of your policy is crucial. Let’s delve into policy limits, and the maximum amount your insurance company will pay for a lawsuit against you. Breakdown of Policy Limits: Think of […]

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled late last year that a statute barring medical liability lawsuits filed more than eight years after the date of injury — even if the patient is unable to determine the cause of their injury within that time frame — violates the state’s constitution. The case at hand, Bennett v. […]

The Connecticut Supreme Court recently determined that the executive order by Gov. Ned Lamont granting medical professionals and healthcare facilities immunity from any medical malpractice actions related to care delivered during the state’s COVID-19 response did not apply in two medical malpractice cases. The first case, Mills v. Hartford HealthCare, involved the alleged wrongful death […]

A nationwide examination of disciplinary actions taken by state medical boards between 2019 and 2021 concluded that Michigan disciplined physician misconduct at a higher rate than any other state. Determined by the annual average number of “serious disciplinary actions” taken by each state’s medical board per 1,000 licensed physicians, Ohio ranked second, North Dakota third […]

New York lawmakers have again overwhelmingly passed a bill to overhaul the state’s 176-year-old wrongful death statute. A similar bill was vetoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Jan. 30 due to her concerns it could result in “significant costs for many sectors of our economy, particularly hospitals that are still recovering from the pandemic and […]

The Florida Supreme Court last month amended the state’s rules of appellate procedure “to provide for interlocutory review of nonfinal orders that deny a motion dismiss on the basis of the qualifications of a corroborating witness.” Prior to the rule change, medical malpractice defendants had to wait until the conclusion of their trial before appealing […]