Consumer Law

The Politics Behind Tort Reform

Posted on May 20, 2012
Hello, and welcome back after that fifteen-month intermission. I've been too busy helping people to blog about the forces that want to prevent me from helping people. To dip my toe back in the blogging water, I thought I'd give a very brief primer on the politics behind tort reform...

The value of a human life and damage caps

Posted on February 17, 2011
Even if we go with the Bush-era figure of $6.8 million, you?re far above the often-proposed cap of $250,000 for noneconomic damages.  I?m morally opposed to ANY damage cap because I don?t believe that you can set a flat rate on every human?s life...

Business Litigation vs. Malpractice Litigation–Let's Get Some Perspective

Posted on February 09, 2011
Which is a greater tragedy: A child dying at the hands of an incompetent doctor, or a toy company ripping off the design of a doll from another toy company?  Brian Wilson discusses how out-of-whack our priorities are regarding ?reforming? the tort system: I couldn't help but to juxtapose the latest Doll Wars legal skirmish against the latest push in Congress to limit malpractice victims' recovery to $250,000...

Great Op-Ed on Malpractice Reform

Posted on February 08, 2011
I liked this one. Washington lawmakers who advocate for medical malpractice reform assume they know what goes on in doctors' offices. They say physicians order unnecessary tests because they fear being sued. So-called "defensive medicine" drives up health spending, the argument goes...

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No Jobs In Ohio After Tort Reform

Posted on January 15, 2011
My Friend and Ohio personal injury attorney Brian Wilson discusses the drop in tort lawsuits in Ohio between 2002 and 2009.  Between those two years, many tort deform laws took effect and were upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court. Compare these numbers to 2002, shortly before The Ohio Legislature passed the beginning of many of The Chamber's lobbied for reforms...

Wisconsin May Cap Punitive Damages At $200,000

Posted on January 14, 2011
Continuing the ?2011 will be a bad year for civil justice? theme: The Senate judiciary committee voted 3-2 on Friday to cap punitive damages at $200,000 or twice the amount of compensatory damages, whichever is greater. Current state law does not lay out any caps on punitive damages...

Florida Wants To Allow Irrelevant Evidence In Automotive Defect Lawsuits

Posted on January 13, 2011
Here?s a hypothetical for you.  Imagine that a guy is incredibly drunk ? say twice the legal limit.  He gets in his car to start it up, and as soon as he turns the key, a defectively-designed fuel pump ignites the gas tank.  The car blows up, and kills him instantly...

2011 Looking Like A Bad Year For Civil Justice

Posted on January 10, 2011
2011 is already shaping up to be a horrible year for the civil justice system.  The Republican takeover of many state legislatures means we?re going to see a slew of tort ?reform? measures that limit the rights of injured citizens and pass on the cost of negligent corporations onto taxpayers...

How many lives has 'defensive medicine' saved?

Posted on November 05, 2010
?Defensive medicine? is the name given to tests that doctors run more out of fear of being sued than out of concern for their patients.  The poster-child of the ?defensive medicine? argument is the CT scan.  We?re told by ?reformers? that these tests are expensive and unnecessary...

$1.5 million dollars for sharing 24 songs, $250,000 for a lifetime of paralysis?

Posted on November 04, 2010
Nothing better illustrates the profound inequity of capping noneconomic damages than the verdicts against file sharers: Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who has been fighting the recording industry over 24 songs she illegally downloaded and shared online four years ago, has lost another round in court...

Cure, cause–what's the difference?

Posted on October 17, 2010
And some people still believe that a drug is ?safe and effective? if the FDA says so. In the past month, the Food and Drug Administration has concluded that in some cases two types of drugs that were supposed to be preventing serious medical problems were, in fact, causing them...

Tom Donahue: Hypocrite, Serial Plaintiff

Posted on October 14, 2010
Everyone?s favorite foreign-corporation-funded special-interest group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has a guy at the helm named Tom Donahue.  I used to think that Tom hated lawsuits.  After all, his group spends millions of dollars every year to persuade the public that we need to pass tort ?reform? because there are too many lawsuits...

A Medical Malpractice Testimonial

Posted on October 06, 2010
?John,? a frequent TortDeform reader, gave me permission to share this story: I have read some of the things on Tortdeform and would like to share our medical malpractice experience.  My hope is that others will share their experiences. Perhaps, if enough experiences are shared, we can change public perception...

Where is the concern for the patients?

Posted on October 06, 2010
I read an article today that discusses a very large increase in the number of diagnostic tests ordered each year.  One of the doctors quoted in the article of course blamed the medical malpractice system.  Pay particular attention to the last line quoted below: But, Dr...

Contradictory Evidence Regarding Defensive Medicine

Posted on September 28, 2010
Read the passage below and see if you spot a problem: Diagnostic errors are the leading cause of malpractice suits, accounting for as many as 40% of cases and costing insurers an average of $300,000 per case to settle, studies of resolved claims show...

Eric Turkewitz Has Eight Questions About Tort Reform for the Tea Party Movement

Posted on May 04, 2010
  As the Tea Party movement gains more attention, some folks want to know exactly what they believe in. Today?s question: Do they believe in a  smaller, less intrusive, government or will they follow the Republican Party down the path of Big Government Tort ?Reform?? Since the Tea Party is a nascent and disorganized collection, I?m tossing out eight questions for those conservatives in the movement to ponder as they decide which side of the tort ?reform? debate they are on, Source: Does the Tea Party Believe in Conservatism or Tort ?Reform?? (8 Questions) ? New York Personal Injury Law Blog If you want to know what  they eight questions are, you?ll have to follow the link.

If we completely abolished all medical malpractice lawsuits…

Posted on April 26, 2010
?it still wouldn?t stop doctors from ordering unnecessary tests.  There?s at least two reasons why.  First: But defensive medicine - tests and procedures ordered to protect against medical-malpractice lawsuits - can also add to costs. "As a resident, the first thing you learn is that your license is on the line," said Dr...

Medical malpractice suits decline in Pennsylvania

Posted on April 26, 2010
Always good to have some hard numbers to look at instead of simply anecdotes: The number of new malpractice suits in 2009 fell to 1,533 from 1,602 cases initiated in 2008. That marked a 47 percent decline from the 2,904 suits filed in 2002. And in Philadelphia, new malpractice suits fell even more dramatically to 491 from 1,365 in 2002 - a 64 percent drop...

WinCo recalls tainted beef because of efforts of trial lawyer

Posted on April 26, 2010
My hat is off to Bill Marler, the Seattle attorney behind this beef recall.  I also hope his efforts to add additional strains of E. coli to the verboten list. These days, food recalls are commonplace. But when the supermarket chain WinCo Foods announced last Friday it was recalling thousands of pounds of ground beef for potential E...

Are You Following TortDeform On Twitter?

Posted on April 21, 2010
You should be.  Follow @tortdeform for the latest news about TortDeform.  Spread the word! (You?re also welcome to follow me ? I?m at @justinianlane.)

The Rogues' Roundup – April 20th Edition

Posted on April 20, 2010
It?s time again for another civil justice roundup.  A group of civil justice system supporters are helping get this site migrated to the latest version of Movable Type.  In their honor, ?Inter Alia on the Internet? is being renamed to ?The Rogues? Roundup...

At Least Alito Likes Animals

Posted on April 20, 2010
I?m too much of an animal lover to be objective about this.  I think anyone who makes, sells, or watches animal cruelty videos is a scumbag.  At least Justice Alito agrees that animal cruelty shouldn?t be protected by the First Amendment: In a strong embrace of its traditional First Amendment doctrines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday found unconstitutional a federal law that criminalized the sale or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty...

Auto Insurers Begin To Go After Toyota

Posted on April 20, 2010
The big names in the ?reform? crowd have been falling all over themselves to defend Toyota against allegations that their cars have caused accidents.  The ?reform? talking points have primarily been that (a) elderly drivers are to blame, and (b) trial lawyers are just trying to drum up business...

Let's tackle fraudulent billing first

Posted on April 18, 2010
If we?re looking for ways to save money in the medical system, let?s tackle fraudulent billing practices like this first: Dr. Roland Borrasi chuckled as he told three doctors how he used kickbacks and cash bribes to shuttle unsuspecting nursing home residents into Chicago-area hospitals and psychiatric wards...

The Political Hypocrisy Of Attorney Fee Caps

Posted on April 17, 2010
To me, there is no more serious political sin than that of hypocrisy.  Nowhere is that sin more prevalent than among those who support the tort ?reform? movement.  By and large, reformers consider themselves to be conservatives.  And nothing is more hypocritical than for a conservative to support legislation such as this: ALBANY, NY (04/15/2010)(readMedia)-- New Yorkers for Lawsuit Review (NYLR), a diverse coalition of hard working New York businesspeople, health care professionals, farmers and consumers, applauds Assemblyman Felix Ortiz' newly introduced legislation (A...

The Safer A Hospital Is, The Less Often It Gets Sued

Posted on April 15, 2010
Who ever would have guessed that the less often a hospital commits an error, the less it gets sued: Reducing the number of preventable patient injuries in California hospitals from 2001 to 2005 was associated with a corresponding drop in malpractice claims against physicians, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation...

Should we rethink the enforceability of 'clickwrap' agreements?

Posted on April 15, 2010
If you?ve ever bought or downloaded any software, you?ve likely had to click that you agreed to the terms of a licensing agreement.  And if you?re  like most people, you never read the terms of the agreement.  That means you probably have no idea what you agreed to...

Free Speech, Off-label marketing, and the learned intermediary doctrine

Posted on April 15, 2010
St. Louis today has an editorial that persuasively argues that off-label marketing should remain illegal: Off-label marketing may be against the law, but off-label prescribing is perfectly legal, even common. About one in five prescriptions written in the United States each year is for an off-label use...

Automotive Safety Roundup

Posted on April 13, 2010
A reader sent me the following three links.  Contributions are always welcome! Toyota Delayed a U.S. Recall, Documents Show NHTSA declines to revisit roof-crush standard The Importance of Vehicle Rollover as a Field Triage Criterion

Should Congress force SCOTUS to allow cameras?

Posted on April 13, 2010
I for one think it should.  Glad to know that none other than Senator Specter agrees. "I believe Congress has the authority, should it choose to do so, to direct the Supreme Court to permit its proceedings to be televised," Specter said...

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