Law Technology

Try a Medical Mis-Management Case

I have a number of notes from seminars that I’ve attended the past year and I don’t know where the information came from or who said it. It’s good stuff, so I  am going to post it without attribution. Please let me know if you’re the one the information came from and I’ll change the post to reflect that.

Medical malpractice cases are becoming harder and harder to win. Doctors have done a good job of publicizing the ‘problems’ with medical malpractice, how their insurance is too high and how they’re being run out of the state because of the bad environment.

Of course, if you go to the doctor’s parking lot of any hospital, you’ll see a lot of BMW’s, Lexus’s and Mercedes’. You won’t see a lot of 1976 Ford Pinto’s, or 1982 Taurus’. And of course, if it is so bad in this state, they don’t say where it is better for the doctor to go to. Also, when all of the doctors are being run out of the state, the State Medical Board shows more and more doctos coming into the state.

Regardless of the facts, the ideas are still in the head of the jury pool.

Try calling your case a case of medical mis-management, instead of medical malpractice. The idea of malpractice in the jury’s mind means that the doctor was wrong. That he was intentionally wrong. That the Plaintiff is blaiming the doctor for being wrong. That the jury has to blame the doctor for being wrong. That the doctor was a bad doctor.

Juries are reluctant to do that. Instead, call it a case of medical mis-management. That the doctor made an error and didn’t manage the case properly.

 Everyone, has seen good people mis-manage things at times. It’s a way for the jury to find for the Plaintiff wihout blaming the doctor as much.

Full post as published by South Carolina Trial Law Blog on October 27, 2007 (boomark / email).