To be filed in the Random Related Anecdote category:
My wife worked briefly for an OB/GYN in a situation like this. Between insane insurance fees, and government requirements that he accept poor patients without being fully reimbursed (every time he accepts a patient on Medicaid - which he is required to by law - he loses money), his practice is barely holding on. He makes far less than the nurses he hires. He made a comment to my wife once - who was a temp worker making about $10 an hour at the time - that he didn’t clear much more than her. She assumed he was kidding… later she found he wasn’t. Sad, really.
To be filed in the Random Related Anecdote category:
My wife worked briefly for an OB/GYN in a situation like this. Between insane insurance fees, and government requirements that he accept poor patients without being fully reimbursed (every time he accepts a patient on Medicaid - which he is required to by law - he loses money), his practice is barely holding on. He makes far less than the nurses he hires. He made a comment to my wife once - who was a temp worker making about $10 an hour at the time - that he didn’t clear much more than her. She assumed he was kidding… later she found he wasn’t. Sad, really.
Couple of possibilities. Either the Justice system is awarding too much money in these cases and/or awarding damages in cases which should have been won by the Dr. Or there are lots of bad Doctors and the courts are doing the right thing by awarding against them.
I happen to agree with Robb’s initial observation. The reason we have so many malpractice suits is because there are a lot of bad doctors malpracticing. The Insurance companies are losing their shirts(and being forced to drive up premiums, I’m working under the assumption this isn’t just an effort to milk the Doctors out of extra cash because you it’s ludicrous to raise premiums so high they can’t pay. Then you make NO money) because they are insuring Doctors who are too large a risk. Unfortunately this cost spills over to Doctors who are NOT causing the cost to the Insurance company. Good Doctors are being driven out of business by having to bear some of the cost of bad Doctors.
My proposed solution? Police the medical community better and revoke the licenses of the bad doctors before they screw up and become the target of malpractice. Texas has done a HORRIBLE job of this in the past and the good doctors are suffering for it.
**
I think it’s reasonable to believe the parents when they say they would have aborted with no further proof. In any case that claim isn’t central to the case. The case seems to be, they should have had this information, they didn’t get it. If the tests her doctor ran on her would have identified this deformity, then the doctor dropped the ball in either recognizing the defect from the results, or communicating the existance of the defect and it’s seriousness to the patient. The court agreed that the ball had been dropped by the doctor and the family was awarded the money they will need to appropriately care for thier child.
I do. I think we’d all be better off getting rid of all lawyers and instituting a system using arbitration, rather than the current adversarial system. I don’t believe that ALL lawyers are lying scum, totally devoid of any moral or ethical fiber whatsoever, but enough of them are that the total effect is more bad than good.
December 'ole buddy, statements like this just kill your argument.
Is there something wrong with our juries? I sat on a malpractice case where the defendant didn’t even come close to meeting her burdon of proof, and 3 of my fellow jurors still wanted to find for her. Their argument seemed to be “Well, she got hurt!” "Yes’ we said, ‘but not by the people who she’s suing’.
I don’t like that the hospital in the OP settled, but they have considerable justification if they feared that a jury would’ve handed them their ass.
Besides the fact that, as minty noted, arbitration is an adversarial system (with the added negative that arbitrators are not bound by precedent and can rule arbitrarily), you miss the key point of the judicial system - resolution of disputes. The legal system is adversarial because the parties to a lawsuit are adversaries. The legal system reflects this truth.
To eliminate the adversarial nature of the system would be to deprive the parties of the belief that justice was being served. And without that sense, the danger of “private justice” becomes manifest.
And what percentage is your cut-off? If 50% of lawyers are “lying scum,” should we abandon the legal system? If 5%? Inquiring minds want to know (so we can destroy your silly ideas).
Well, this is a hijack, but I sincerely wonder. E.g., the liberal New York Times almost always supports the poor and treis to limit the rich and powerful. They are concerned, e.g., about overpaid executives making a million dollars a years. Yet, they typically support plaintiff’s attorneys, who may make many millions of dollars on a single case. In fact, some firms of plaintiff’s attorneys are a lot richer than the insurance companies they sue. Consumers Union has similar beliefs.
You seem to be arguing, december. that our attitude to negligence suits should be formed by the consequences of those suits for the attorney involved rather than by the consequences of those suits for the parties involved.
I’m sure that’s not what you want to say, but that’s what I’m hearing.
Now will someone tell me how a rational person seems to derive the conclusion that anyone who supports the Muscatellos in this case is somehow doing it out of a desire to see their attorney collect a fee?
They sued for costs to cover the care of their son. They did not take this burden on by choice, they would have exercised their choice to abort, as testified to by the family, had their doctor not been negligent in informing them as to the existance of the defect. Nowhere has ANYONE mentioned the attorney, or their fee. For all we know the attorney was working pro bono.
Nor is there evidence to support the assertion that “liberals” support the right of the family to sue for the money needed to care for their son. Even more rediculous is the assertion that “liberal” support the Muscatellos because they(whoever “they” are) want the attorney representing the Muscatellos to get a large fee.
december do you even TRY to form decent posts anymore? Or are you simply trolling for responses with drivel like your first post in this thread. Have you completely written off the SDMB as a place to actually discuss things, and it’s now a place for you to practice your ability to shock people? We don’t need a Howard Stern around here. There’s plenty of ignorance to fight without you spewing things you don’t really believe or have support for just to get a rise out of some of your fellow posters. Totally jerkish behavior.
Do you think the Muscatello’s will volunteer to waive any & all claims on federal, state & locally funded funded assistance for John (SSI, Medicaid, etc., etc.) until that time all of the settlement resources are spent? Will they return any unused funds if their son faces an early demise?
Baby born with a rare genetic defect, after a normal child. 20 year old technology was used. Testing and pre-natal advice was given by a person or people, hence the chance for human error.
Trial lawyers don’t target overtly negligent parties. They go after professions and institutions that have deep pockets and operate under cirumstances where they are allowed no room for human error. In my profession, If I was dragged into court everytime a problem arose that I was unable to solve or never experienced before, I’d be financially ruined, paranoid and end up quitting.
Those wonderful stalwarts in the legal racket. Performing pro bono services out of the goodness of their heart. In my opinion, pro bono work is usually nothing more than an inexpensive marketing ploy for up and coming attorneys that can’t afford 1-800-WHIPLASH late night TV spots. Or worse yet, to open new doors, new targets, new ways of making a 1/3 down the road via legal precedent:
Um, you are aware that SSI, Medicaid, etc., are needs-based programs, and that a child with $2.4 million is not eligible for such programs, right? So the Muscatellos’ ain’t going to waive their right to any such assistance, because they have no such assistance.
No, plaintiffs lawyers, particularly ones on contingency fees, take on cases where they have an extremely high chance of winning, and therefore getting paid.
What’s the phrase I’m looking for? Oh yeah - bite me. I’ve performed considerable amounts of pro bono work, and I’ve never marketed them in any way, shape or form. Nor have I used them to open new doors. Indeed, I don’t search for “targets” - my paying job is to defend corporations against lawsuits.
Oh, and by the way, not a single attorney I know does pro bono for the reasons you ascribe. They do it out of the goodness of their hearts. And I know a hell of a lot of lawyers who do pro bono work. Hell, I know many whose entire career is pro bono.
And I think I’m a better person to speak of such things. Ya see, I know real lawyers. I don’t live in your dystopian fantasy world.
Looks like Sua’s already covered the legal errors, but I’ve got this response already finished, and I got diverted with on OP in the Pit, so here it is anyway:
Of course, maybe those questions could have been accounted for if the defendants had shown up on the family’s door, checkbook in hand, apologizing for having fucked up to the family’s detriment. Instead, they had to get sued, then fought tooth and nail to prevent any payout until it became obvious they were gonna get pounded by the courts and twelve citizens on the jury.
Nearly every state in the nation, including New Jersey, allows defendants to join other “responsible third parties” in the lawsuit and have the jury apportion fault among them all, thereby drastically reducing the amount of money they’ll have to dig out of those deep pockets if they were not, in fact, “overtly negligent.”
If only you knew how many personal insults I just deleted out of respect for the boundaries of this forum. Instead, I’ll just have to invite you to join me in a conversation in a somewhat less restrictive location.
Some programs are means-tested, BUT a severely retarded 22 year old has no means, hence he’s eligible for more programs, assistance, group homes, around the clock care as it is.
These parents, who have my sympathy, filed two suits in court with at least one intention being to profit on their tragedy. Where is it written they’re entitled to someone else’s money just because a rare genetic defect wasn’t discovered. This settlement sets another alarming precedent. What’s next? Women suing men for passing on dormant albino genes?
The usual argument from the pro-tort crowd is, “What’s the complaint? Bad cases get thrown out or reversed on appeal anyway.”
If the majority of cases taken are because of “an extremely high chance of winning”, I’d like to know why SO many (not enough, mind you) civil cases are thrown out or reversed as being frivilous.
Bite you? Can I sue you if I chip a tooth? I said usually…not always. There is good and bad in every profession, but I’ve seen, heard and read enough to know there are alot of benefits to doing pro bono work. If attorneys wishing to do free work solely “out of the goodness of their hearts” and looked only at the merits of a case and the needs of a plaintiff, there’d be alot of volunteers at the homeless shelters ladelling out soup in 3-piece suits and a whole lot less traffic down at the local courthouse.
I notice you had no comment on all those better people in your profession who’ve now started the “9/11 feeding frenzy” that was quoted.
Check your address book of some of your colleagues. They’re not neighbors of mine in my dystopian fantasy world. They may be listed as having Park Ave and Sutton Place addresses, but in fact, they live in sewers & filthy alleyways. Profiting off a system they designed and they control; like a parasite on a host.
Is any of that relevant? Did he suddenly stop being a citizen of the federal/state/local district which funds such assistance programs? Many such programs are based upon the financial need of the recepient. By the awarding of the monies from the trial, I’d guess the Muscatellos are inelligible for a good many programs already. Of the programs which might not stipulate financial need, I have already said that entitlement doesn’t end when you get a fat wallet.
As for the parents keeping any monies still remaining should their son preceed them in death: I would be fine with that. They bore the sole costs for 20 years. Let them keep whatever remains.
**
I’m operating under an assumption here. If the defendant(the company providing malpractice insurance for the Dr in question) was able to prove the tests available to their client a the time would not have shown this defect in utero then there would never have been a case. The Dr would have done everything right and medically necessary to the full extent of their ability given the information they had available. My assumption is the tests, even the relatively primitive ones of twenty years ago, would have shown this defect. The case would have been predicated on the doctor’s failure to accurately recognize the defect from the test results.
If this is not the case then I’d agree that the suit loses a lot of it’s merits.
**
You’re right. There is no room for human error in the medical field. If the doctor saw anamolous results on a test he ran, then he should have referred the results to a specialist who could recognize the defect. I don’t expect them to be omniscient, but I do expect them to take steps to find out what is going on when they find something they don’t understand. The failure of the Dr in question to do so seems to be the basis for the case. The possibility of such failure is why he carried malpractice insurance.
**
Thank you for your opinion. Do you have any facts as to the situation of the attorney who represented the Muscatellos?
This is not to say I believe all these cases are meritorious. It is remarkably easy to get a juries sympathy when you have a deformed child. OTOH if you have a deformed child, I happen to believe you NEED sympathy.
Here’s a case, taken from Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife, by Peggy Vincent; summarized by my wife(I haven’t read the book) and related by me. Apologies for any errors.
The story is told from the PoV of the midwife who wrote the book, in a “Wrongful Life” suit she was part of. The baby she was delivering had the cord looped around it’s ear. This condition is not really detectable because it’s
A) not really possible until very late term and the baby goes “head down” towards the birth canal. The cord moves around too much in the preceeding months.
B) Even on ultrasound, the cord is not easily detected if it’s too close to a major body part(like the head).
Upon engagement in the birth canal the midwife felt the cord was tangled around the baby’s head and being compressed between the baby’s skull and the birth canal. This is an extremely dangerous condition because the baby is under great stress at that point of delivery and its heart is beating close to 200 times a minute. Without a steady flow of oxygenated blood from the placenta(via the cord) there is little chance the baby will survive birth. The midwife called for an ambulance for transport to the nearest hospital for an emergency C-section. In the meantime she physically held the baby up out of the birth canal. She has her hand up inside the laboring mother and is fighting against the woman’s uterine muscles to keep this baby inside and the cord uncompressed.
Here’s where it starts to go really bad. The EMTs arrive and refuse to transport the woman with the midwife still holding the baby out of the birth canal. They do not believe they should transport a patient with the midwife’s arm still wedged inside her. They do not recognize the midwife’s authority to make the medical decision to transport in that position or the inherent danger of the situation if she is not allowed to remain in position holding the baby back. Time passes while they argue. Eventually they acquiese and transport midwife and patient to the hospital where an emergency C-section is performed.
The baby is not breathing upon removal from the uterus. Too much time has passed and the baby is in shock from the stress of the birth and the tug of war between the woman’s body trying to push the baby out(thereby crushing the umbilical cord) and the midwife trying to hold the baby in(thereby preserving the umbilical cord in a functioning state). The Dr who performed the c-section begins to resuscitate the baby. The cutoff point for resuscitation(according to the book) is ten minutes. After ten minutes you’re supposed to stop because the brain has probably been irrevokably damaged by oxygen deprivation. Ten minutes passes.
The Dr continues to resuscitate the baby. The baby begins to breathe.
The couple are now the proud parents of a human vegetable.
No defects, nothing except a problem during delivery, slow response to the issue and a Dr who refused to stop trying to save the baby’s life. A perfectly human scenario.
The family sued the midwife, the ambulance company and the doctor who performed the C-section/resuscitation. They got a million out of the midwife’s insurance carrier and she didn’t know how much out of the others. The midwife lost her insurance over it, but she related a conversation with her insurance company.
Midwife: “I didn’t do anything wrong! There was no way to know the baby’s cord was like that until it was too late and I did everything I could to save the baby. If the ambulance drivers had just transported us without arguing with me we might have been fine. Or if the doctor had stopped trying to resuscitate after the ten minutes was up like he should have then the parents would have had funeral costs, but not have to support a vegetable. Where was my malpractice in this scenario?”
Insurance Rep: “We know. But if those parents come to a courtroom with a vegetable instead of a baby, we’d have lost even more.”
End of Story.
So there we have a case of a one of the parties in a suit being penalized without good cause. The case against her was without merit, but still recieved a settlement. I agree there are cases like this. But I still think the majority of the blame lies at the feet of the people who are supposed to watchdog the medical professionals and keep people who could cause cases of real malpractice without licenses.
Enjoy,
Steven
On Preview: I guess I talk too much Three responses already.
I said it before, but it bears repeating. Trial lawyers have WAY too much power on this society. The write the laws in legislative branches throughout the country, interpret the laws in the judiciary and block reforms through political influence and financial contributions.
The checkbook analogy holds NO WATER. Read what was posted esquire…
That’s over and above the VERY generous handout to victims families, where common sense (not legal gibberish) tells me there was no Liability In The First Place.
Responsible third parties. I know what you mean. A drunk crashes a single engine jet and his survivors lawyers sue distilleries, breweries, Cessna, 100 Companies that make parts for the plane, the air-traffic controllers, the weatherman, etc. etc.
I won’t join you in the pit…It’s childish and never accomplishes anything (except giving insulted and or pissed off parties a forum to rant in and say humorous things). Call me a neanderthal, ignoramus if you must. When you’re done, come back to GD and do me the favor of justifying the (now an official hijack) 9/11 feeding frenzy. While you’re at it you can explain to me how that pro bono effort was pure and simple kindness, not the groundwork for a well thought out, very profitable scheme.
John, try to focus here, son. A severely retarded 22 year old with $2.4 million has means - 2.4 million of them.
What makes you think I’m from the “pro-tort crowd”? Not only am I a defendants’ attorney - I defend against tort claims - on these very boards I’ve argued for tort reform.
You have to do better than that. Look up how many civil cases are filed in the United States. Look up how many civil cases are dismissed as frivolous. Divide. You will discover that an amazingly low percentage of filed cases are deemed frivolous.
Remember, son, anecdotes does not equal good evidence.
Actually, as demonstrated above, you haven’t seen, heard or read enough about an issue that you are extremely passionate about. And one of the things you don’t know enough about is pro bono work.
As for the 9/11 lawsuits, it’s interesting that you blame lawyers, not Congress, for the mess. Congress could have simply barred 9/11 suits and made the compensation fund mandatory. They chose not to, and instead promised that the compensation fund would be the equivalent of a lawsuit - you would get the same compensation. And, of course, that has been demonstrated to be untrue.
John, there are a lot of valid bases on which to criticize the American legal system, particularly the tort system. I recommend that you study and learn them, rather than relying on tabloid media for your “information.” You would be a lot more credible, and people may actually be swayed by your arguments. As it is, your POV is easily dismissed as ill-informed and incorrect.
Three responses already.