Personal Injury Law

Doctor Speaks Out against Medical Malpractice Caps

By Benjamin J. Sansone, Esq.

As any injury lawyer knows, and most non lawyers know, healthcare providers have been pushing for years in all 50 states, and even pushes on the Federal level, to cap damage awards in medical malpractice cases. Sadly, they have been successful in many states, most notably for my clients, Missouri.

Doctors and hospitals claim they are unfairly targeted as the personal injuries resulting from medical negligence were not intentional and they did the best they could, so they should get special treatment. Well, as often the case is with people who criticize trial lawyers, once they become the victim because of someone's carelessness they realize trial lawyers are the only advocates for the future victims of personal injury and that they now see that damage caps are ridiculous. Example, the Doctor in this article that is against medical malpractice lawsuit caps, because she knows what it is like to be the victim.

Had the Ellensons not won a malpractice award well above the proposed $250,000 she would have had to quit her job to stay home with her son every day.

I ask Ellenson if she could have raised her son in a comfortable world on $250,000. "Absolutely no way," she says. "I continue to believe, as a practicing physician, that the way to curtail medical costs is not by further victimizing victims of malpractice, but to put in place mechanisms and systems in hospitals and doctors' offices to minimize risk to patients."

The 7th Amendment of the US Constitution, guarantees a fundamental right to a trial by jury. This included the jury to decide the facts of the case, which include damages to the victim. Damage caps take away the power form the judiciary and the juries. See Motion to Strike Affirmative Defenses based on Missouri Medical malpractice Caps

Full post as published by Missouri Injury Law Blog on March 18, 2011 (boomark / email).

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