I am being sued. Because I was there.

The BBQ Pit
1

It’s a truism among doctors that for many malpractice and/or negligence suits everyone whose name is on the patient’s record gets sued. It is immaterial if they actually had anything to do with the patient’s care.

I used to nod knowingly when I heard this type of thing, but I never believed it would happen to me. Indeed, I’ve never had a single suit, complaint, investigation, etc. Ever. In almost twenty years. So, let me tell you a story.

About two years ago, while I was tending to my own business on the hospital ward, I was summoned by a frantic nurse. A patient, not mine, and not one I had ever had any contact with whatsoever, ever, had experienced a cardiac arrest. Could I come now for help. Of course I went over and commenced CPR until the “Code Blue” team arrived (about 60 seconds). I left the scene and learned later that the patient did not survive.

Fast forward to today. I get served with “papers”. I am now a defendant in a negligence case. Why? Eight months before the cardiac arrest, eight months before I spent a minute with her as she lay dieing, she had an unsuccessful surgery on the spinal cord and the surgeons involved are being sued. And apparently so am I!! Simply because my name was on the patient’s chart, I am being sued. The fact that I had no involvement with the surgery, the postoperative course, with anything except trying to revive her for 60 seconds, is irrelevant. No, for my efforts I get the pleasure of major anxiety reading the “subpoena”, reading and rereading it until I’m sure that, of course, I’m “innocent”. I get the pleasure now of working with lawyers. Of clearing the mark on my name. Of all the aggrevation.

And you now what? Had I not responded to the nurse’s request to come to her assistance, I would have been sued for that! Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I am mighty pissed. It aint fair.

2

My wife was once stopped at a red light when a car two cars back hit the car ehind her which hit her. She had no damage. But the car behind her sued her, even though they hit her. I spoke to their law office, and they said they had a policy of suing everyone involved and letting the courts settle.

I did not take seriously the possiblity that we would pay, but ity was a hassle, as I had to go down to the police station (it was in another town) and get a report.

I complained to the state supreme court (which regulates lawyers) but they said they couldn’t so anything while the case was pending, but that in general they liked to let everyone sue everyone. So even after the case was dropped I didn’t persue it.

So I imagine you too will beat the rap but have some aggravation in the meanwhile (much more than I had, obviously, with a death case). Good luck. :slight_smile:

3

That’s just fucking ridiculous. There’s something seriously fucked up with our court system when they just allow this “Eh, just sue em all and let God sort em out” kind of policy.

But then again, people are suing fast food restaraunts for making them fat, so what more can you say.

Like IzzyR said, I’m sure there’s a 99.9% chance they’ll look at you, tell you to go home, and never bother you with it again, so I wouldn’t worry much about it. but still, it’s a hassle, and stupid fucking thing to go through. Sorry it happened, but I woulnd’t be too concerned.

Could you counter sue for lible/slander? Just a thought…

4

This is so ridiculous. I REALLY think that there should be fines and penalties slapped onto both the lawyers and the plaintiffs who file these blanket suits.

Well, that or I should be entitled to just shoot everyone who’s an idjit. But as TubaDiva says, how would I know when to STOP?

5

You run out of bullets?

6

Shit like this is why malpractice rates are so high.

“First, do no harm” should apply to the Law profession, too.

7

Do you have the choice to fight the suit, or does your malpractice insurance company get to decide?

I’m hoping it’s your choice, considering that if the insurance company decides that it’s easier and cheaper to just settle, that it will be a permanent black mark on your name. My understanding is that doctors can’t have too many of those black marks before they lose their insurance and thus potentially their right to practice medicine.

That seems like one of the downsides to the frivolous medical lawsuits we often hear about. Then again, I’m just musing, so feel free to ignore me if I’m flat-out wrong!

8

It was a snowy evening when my volunteer fire department was dispatched to a rescue call. I approached a T intersection at which I would have to make a left. I slowed early and stopped 10-15 feet short of the stop sign and waited for traffic to clear. My blue lights were flashing.

Asshat approaches from my left, slams on his brakes, runs off the road, over a shrub, a sign and into the side of my truck.

I was subsequently sued for being ‘negligently stopped’ under the premise that Asshat expected me to go through the stop sign intersection and not yield the right of way, although the vehicle code says that I should behave as I did.

Worse yet, my insurance company paid Asshat for damages to his vehicle, although I was stopped when struck.

Go figure.

9

Tiny hijack - if a Doctor writes an order for a drug to be given (and
I’m not just talking antibiotics or narcotics, there are some killer drugs out there), as a nurse I am responsible for making sure that
the dose is correct before giving it. If the Doctor writes an order that is not within normal limits and I give the med as written by the doctor, guess who is responsible? You got it right if you said the nurse. Where am I going with this? I’m not sure, except to say that doctors earn 6 figure salaries for what they do, and we earn $25 an hour.

I’m guessing that they’ll be some other personnel, including nurses, named in that lawsuit. I hope everything turns out well in the end, which could be a long time from now.

10

We got sued by our tenant’s neighbors for a dog attack.

Our tenant owned dogs. He kept them in a kennel. One of HIS dogs get out of the kennel and go into the neighbor’s backyard. Dog goes after husband. Husband gets chased around a bit by dog. Wife gets hose and tries to hose dog. Husband runs in house, dog follows, woman is trying to hose the dog down INSIDE the house. Husband slips from water and falls on his ass.

We got sued for damaged incurred by this. Not the owner of the dogs, us. Fortunately, the judged favored the defendants (us). The thing that irks me is they didn’t sue the person responsible solely because they knew they couldn’t get any money out of them. Since we owned the house they assumed we had deep pockets and went after us. I know know about liability issues with renting- who knows maybe they had every good reason to sue us. But from my prespective it seemed ludicrous.

11

I meant to say I DONT know about liability issues with renting.

12

How about malicious prosecution. Bring a case against you without merit or evidence. Name the plaintiff AND his lawyer.

This door swings both ways. Be aggressive.

13

Of course, if the lawyers involved don’t name everybody they possibly can, then the clients will probably turn around and sue the lawyers for negligence.

Incubus, I feel your pain. One of the first rules of lawsuits is “never sue poor people”. It often works out the way it did in your case, though.

I handled one where Mr. Homeowner had all the bricks fall off the front of his house. He didn’t sue the contractor who built the house, or the subcontractor who did the brick work, or the people who sold him the house (all of whom might be hard to find, out of business, or broke), he sued the city for negligence in inspecting the construction.

I got to do a lot of interesting research about the duty to inspect, and had me a whole lot of fancy legal type arguments ready to go come trial day. I was all revved up.

It turns out that all I had to do was get up and point out to the Judge that Mr. Homeowner hadn’t produced any evidence that, at the time the house was built, there even was a bylaw which required that the house be inspected in the first place.

This is one of the reasons it’s a bad idea to represent yourself.

You sue everybody because you don’t know where the case is going to go, or what the final fact situation is going to be once you’ve spent some time investigating. It sucks, but as far as the Courts are concerned the fact that you were sued and then either dropped as a Defendant along the way or found not liable is a wash, and any bother or expense you had to go to is compensated for in the award of costs (if any), which never ever really covers it.

A little tort reform seems in order. All we have to do is get the lawyers who turn into politicians (and will return to the practice of law once they’re out of office) to put together some laws that will place their fellow lawyers on a restricted diet of fees, and convince the voters that it’s really in their best interests to give up their chance at getting a multi-million dollar award because they don’t like the way their steak was cooked. That should be pretty easy.

14

Anyone can file a lawsuit. The judge has to be the one to decide if it is meritorious or not. What would be your alternative? Allow the clerk who stamps in your summons and complaint to say “Sorry, you can’t sue this guy because I, the clerk, decided it’s a stupid lawsuit”? A lot of people favor tort reform, such as a “loser pays” system. This might prevent bogus lawsuits because the plaintiff wouldn’t want to end up paying the bill. But there really is no sure fire way to prevent these suits, short of saying you can’t EVER sue a doctor, which I don’t think would be fair either.

Which is really a drag for you, KarlGauss. It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s a common strategy for lawyers to sue everyone involved, and then drop those who aren’t reponsible as the facts of the case come in. The reason being that the plaintiff is fighting the statute of limitations. It’s much easier to just name everyone, because you can drop them later - rather than taking a chance on time running out and then realizing that you aren’t suing the right person. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s how lawyers think. I work for a lawyer, and he will do things like: if he needs a particular document from the opposing party, he will just get a whole box of stuff just in case he needs any of it, rather than just figuring out exactly what he needs and asking for it. Instead of finding the needle in the haystack, just take the whole damn haystack; then you’re sure of having the needle.

I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better, but my guess is that you will get dropped from the suit pretty quickly.

15

Unfortunately, it is difficult to claim damages from people who file borderline friviolous lawsuits. The suit has to pretty much be totally without merit to successfully counter-sue for that reason. Although in KarlGauss’ case, if they refused to drop him as a defendant, he might have a shot.

“Loser pays” is the hydrogen bomb of tort reform. It would get rid of a ton of frivolous lawsuits, but also lots of legitimate ones as well. I wonder if some kind of “points” system could be introduced, where lawyers or law firms start accumulating points for filing or pursuing borderline or frivolous lawsuits. Eh, probably not feasible…

16

Probably off topic, but I wrote an article a few years back for the Fortean Times which dealt with strange lawsuits. The ones I focussed on were a man who sued the Royal College of Dental Surgeons and the Minister of Defence, among others, for conspiring to conceal his Martian heritage, and a guy who sued Satan and All His Minions for screwing up his life.

Both of these lawsuits were actually filed and issued. The Courts used some sound logic to get rid of them. With the Martian it was the fact that the Defendants didn’t specifically deny that he was a Martian. Since anything not specifically denied is admitted as a fact, he was (legally) a Martian and didn’t have the right to sue in a Canadian Court. With the Satan guy it was his failure to provide the necessary information so that the U.S. Marshals could serve the Defendant (Satan) with the paperwork.

Just because it sounds ridiculous doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be considered. I bet the idea of integrating schools sounded pretty ridiculous to the residents of Mississippi not that long ago.

Oh, whoops, I kind of defended the legal system there for a minute. Let me just remind everyone that lawyers are scum.

17

Uh, oh. Wait 'til Sua gets here. Boy are you gonna get it.:wink:

18

I used to be a lawyer. That’s how I know that all lawyer jokes are, in fact, true.

19

I propose the Shit Happens Clause, to be applied to all lawsuits by a right-minded individual before a writ can be issued.

The plaintiff’s attorney has to present the proposed writ to the Shit Happens Clerk, who looks at it and, if it is bunk, says “sorry, you can’t serve that lawsuit”. “Why not?” “Because shit happens, that’s why. Now fuck off”.

20

My daughter’s first pediatrician was a wonderful man who happened to be on duty at the hospital the day a woman had a difficult delivery. Even tho he never saw the woman or her baby, he was named in the malpractice suit. The stress and aggravation of dealing with the whole situation led him to give up his practice and leave town. The only way I found out he’d been cleared was that the paper printed his letter to the editor complaining how they’d been quick to report he was being sued but never stated he was cleared.

I was sorry to see him go. We lost a terrific doctor because of a misdirected lawsuit.