The “everyone’s a victim”, “blame the other guy” and “try to strike it rich” mentality, (aided by judges sitting on the bench and abetted by the leaches professionally known as trial lawyers), continues unchallenged in our civil courts.
A $2,400,000.00 settlement was reached in the first successful “Wrongful Life Suit.”
A few details of the suit (a couple from the link, a couple from law professors I can not cite):
[ol][li] Lucy Muscatello, of NJ, sued the University of Dentistry and Medicine for not detecting a genetic defect she possessed that caused her to have a severely retarded child.[/li][li]The child, John Muscatello Jr., was born in 1982 and has a very rare (6 cases known in the US) genetic defect he inherited from his mother.[/li][li]Mrs. Mucatello had the genetic screening test prior to having a perfectly normal daughter, not immediately before having John. She feels her genetic and/or pre-natal testing should have detected the defect.[/li][li]Had the plaintiff known she was going to have a severely handicapped child, she would have opted to terminate the pregnancy.[/li][li]The settlement award is based on the son’s future life needs.[/li][li]This is the second suit brought by the Muscatello’s, the first, in 1984, was unsuccessful. [/li][li]Several “wrongful life” lawsuits have been brought in the past; in the USA, the UK and France…this is the first to end successfully.[/ol][/li]
In my opinion, this is a bad precedent that opens another huge Pandora’s Box in our civil justice system.[ul][]Where does it end? A huge door has just been opened for trial lawyers to find marionette-like plaintiffs to further abuse the system…provided they get their 1/3[]Wrongful life? Just the sound of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth[]Why did the hospital settle? Did they figure a jury of morons would have awarded even more to the plaintiffs solely on the grounds of emotional sympathy?[]Is anyone ever going to stand up to the legal profession?Their continued rape of medical professionals is already causing OB/GYN flight from NY, NJ and PA.Is genetic testing supposed to be an exact science? Especially testing done 20 years ago[/ul]
Full disclosure: I’m a clerk at a plaintiff’s law firm, so I get paid by the leeches you so despise, JohnBckWLD.
This very well may be a frivolous suit, but I’m not convinced of it one way or the other by the blurb in the article. There have been recoveries for wrongful life before, in Texas at least, but as far as I know they’ve always been limited to costs of the actual birth, not for raising the child. I know of a couple of botched sterilization operations that got this money, and one case of a pharmacist who was against birth control and gave a woman sugar pills rather than birth control pills! (That was in the early 70s.) I’m somewhat surprised that this suit was not barred by a statute of limitations, but I’m not familiar with NJ laws. It seems that the plaintiff had some experts that were willing to testify that the hospital should have caught the defect, and I imagine that neither of us are medically expert enough to know if that’s true or not. If the hospital settled, then they probably felt there was a chance they might lose, and without more information I think it’s premature to talk about “abusing the system”.
One thing I do know is that jurors by and large aren’t suckers, and that judges (at least Texas judges) certainly don’t encourage plaintiffs’ lawsuits.
Read the article more closely. This is not about genetic testing, it’s about a genetic flaw that apparently should have been detectable through prenatal testing, such as ultrasound.
I have no idea about the actual detectability of the flaw. However, if their claim is valid, and they took tests that should indeed have revealed the problems, allowing them a choice to abort, I’d say they deserve compensation.
My wife in on the faculty of UMDNJ Newark campus. This is both a medical school and a big hospital. It’s a key medical care provider for the poor in the inner city.
Just a few years ago, this campus stopped offering obstetrical services. Presumably, suits like this one made it unaffordable for them I have read that obstetrical care is being cut back nationwide. Whatever the legal logic, these suits are harming society. Their cost is simply unaffordable.
It means I haven’t checked the actual budget figures. I know that the decision was made on financial grounds. UMDNJ is quite strapped for cash.
Apparently, liberals conisider it more important for a plaintiff’s attorney to receive a million dollar fee, than for poor people to get necessary medical care.
Actually, it’s a pretty well established fact in the medical community that increased litigation is driving an awful lot of malpractice insurance providers–notably St. Paul Companies–out of the business altogether, and out of the business of providing insurance to OB/GYNs in particular. Doctors in this specialty are being forced to limit the number of babies they deliver, or in some cases close their doors altogether, because they can no longer secure or afford malpractice insurance.
From the American Association of Medical Colleges:
Another article, from the journal “Medical Liability Monitor” - I can’t link directly to the article, as the content is subscriber only - noted, in part:
"the median insurance premium for OB/GYNs increased 167 percent from 1982 to 1998. In 2000 it rose seven percent. In 2001, it went up another 12.5 percent. For 2002, the expected increase is 15 percent.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently named nine “Red Alert” states where medical liability insurance situation threatens the availability of physicians: West Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
It’s a problem. I agree with december in this case.
Certiainly, the problem in Texas has to be the lawyers. It couldn’t be that until a couple of months ago, the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners hadn’t revoked a medical license in five years. (“Governing Texas Medical examiners need powers - and will”, Dallas Morning News, Aug. 7, 2002, p. A18 and “Harder line taken on doctors’ abuse”, Dallas Morning News, Sept. 3, 2002, p. 1A). Now, maybe no doctor did anything that warranted losing a license, but I find that hard to believe. So, if the bad doctors won’t lose their license, the only incentive to get them to stop practice medicine is sue the hell out of them.
But, remove lawyers from the situation and it does improve - if suing doctors becomes more expensive than the possible recovery, doctors won’t get sued. Clearly, this will improve healthcare greatly.
Take your straw men elsewhere- would you think it was fair if someone summed up your position as “why do conservatives want doctors who commit malpractice to operate on the poor”?
Isn’t there room in there for a middle ground, to say, “yes, there should be recourse for patients hurt by poor physician practice, but at the same time, a system where massive lawsuits in cases of questionable merit makes it impossible for even good doctors to get insurance, and therefore to practice, is probably not the best system we could institute?”
I don’t think anyone wants to get rid of lawyers altogether. I like lawyers–some of my best friends are lawyers In the case of medical malpractice, though, the situation is getting out of hand. The solution is a complex one: keeping insurance companies from charging usurious rates while finding ways to limit frivolous suits would be a good start, I would think. How to do that? Sadly, that extends far beyond my limited grasp of the situation.
A middle ground would be good - I hope there is room for it. The article that you gave us alink for refers to the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act, which isn’t a middle ground.
Part of what makes doctors’ insurance complex, and why even good doctors get sued, is that pharmaceutical manufacturers sometimes sell defective products. Doctors get sued right along with the manufacturer, even though experience tells us the manufacturers weren’t telling the truth to doctors. Many of these lawsuits end up with the doctors paying nothing. A middle ground here (and probably a good idea by itself), would be to strengthen the FDA so that it can do more to ensure dafe drugs reach consumers and so it can really hurt manufacturers for selling defective products. Unfortunately, Congress is trying to fix this problem by making it economically infeasible to sue pharmaceutical manufacturers.
[sarcasm]Which obviously means they’re losing a lot of court cases. There are no other drains on a medical center’s finances. Doctors and nurses work for free and good medical equipment can be found in any pawn shop for rock bottom prices.[/sarcasm]
**
Their cash problems have a number of causes, including malpractics lawsuits. In addition, the state budget has to be cut due to the slowdown in the economy. Also, UMDNJ is legally required to provide care to the indigent, but the reimbursement is inadequate to cover their costs.
You do realize that it is sick and wrong to brand the entire legal profession as evil just because of the actions of a few hundred thousand rotten apples?
Excellent. That clarification will do nicely. Thanks for backing away from the position that UMDNJ ceased offering OB/GYN services because of excessive lawsuits being brought against them for OB/GYN malpractice.
Nevertheless, there are areas where there is little or no OB care for expectant mothers because doctors have closed up shop because they cannot afford their malpractice coverage. It’s a ridiculous, untenable position. Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing cities in the country, has 93 board certified OBs. In May, a number of them stopped seeing new patients entirely because their premiums had almost doubled. The insurance companies “solution” was for each doctor to limit themselves to fewer than 125 babies delivered each year. More than 23,000 babies were born in Las Vegas in 2001. Do the math.
In reference to this specific suit, I only have one problem. The qualification the parents were making for this being the doctor’s fault is that they claim that they would’ve aborted if they’d known that their child was genetically flawed. How could they possibly substantiate that? Did they have diary entries? Did they get their closest friends and family members to come in and swear “Oh yes, the Muscatellos told me flat out that if they ever found out that a fetus she was carrying had an extraordinarily rare genetic anomaly that almost no one in the US had ever heard of, they’d certainly abort it.” The mind boggles.
In the case of medical malpractice, though, the situation is getting out of hand. The solution is a complex one: keeping insurance companies from charging usurious rates while finding ways to limit frivolous suits would be a good start, I would think. How to do that? Sadly, that extends far beyond my limited grasp of the situation.