Yes, you are correct here.
How about some form of loser pays then? Anyone who brings a suit that is immediately tossed has to pay x amount? I know that is far from perfect, but that might be better then the current state of affairs.
As far as malpractice, I think doctors need more leeway, not less.
Attorneys who knowingly bring forth obviously frivilous lawsuits in bad faith can be subject to disciplinary action and required to pay attorneys’ fees. However, paying a fine merely because a suit is dismissed is too harsh. People can file suits in good faith believing they have a case only to find out later, perhaps in the discovery process, that they do not. Accordingly, the standard shouldn’t be whether a suit is dismissed, but rather whether a suit was filed in bad faith.
Sure, I’m with you. I’m wondering if people getting stuck footing the bill for a legitimate case that was somehow dismissed is the less of two evils. IIRC doesn’t most of Europe have a loser pays the legal fees type of system? Hows that working out?
I don’t know enough about European remedies law to tell you. But I don’t think we should enforce a system wherein a case being dismissed means that they automatically are required to pay attorneys’ fees. Case can be dismissed for a number of reasons, not all of them will center on the merits of the plaintiff’s claim.
Now you’re either being obtuse again, or you’re putting me on. If my good nut is taken from me and my bad nut is left and I can no longer have kids, you bet your sweet ass I’ll come a knocking on your door for some form of restitution, pain and suffering. THat’s just the way it is. Rather than playing pragmatist, honestly put yourself in these positions and tell me how you’d feel, what you’d feel entitled to.
A nominal fee? My ass.
Sam
Just FYI, men who have testicular cancer and still want children are encouraged to make deposits at a sperm bank prior to surgery. While some men regain their fertility post-chemo, others never do.
I understand that. But this isn’t about testicular cancer.
Ok, but say you are in an accident that damages your testicles. Who can you sue then. Just because something bad happens shouldn’t mean you get to become rich. Both the person with the accident and the person with malpractice feel the same pain. Why does only one get restitution?
What kind of malignant growth are we talking about here. Yes, its tragic. Some people are born with low sperm counts and never have children. Who do they get to sue?
If the doctor does it by some means of intentional or malicious intent, then yes, sue him out of existance. We don’t need doctors like that. If he does it because the prep nurse writes on the wrong side of the scrotum, how does suing him help anyone. Your life is still messed up, so by God mess up someone else’s. That’s fair. That’s how I would feel about it.
My knee hurts every day. The surgery was performed to the golden standard, and still, I can’t stand for more than 4 hours a day without it swelling. Should I get to sue for pain and suffering? Surgery isn’t safe. That’s why you have to sign forms that include warnings of accidental death. If something goes wrong, you shouldn’t get to sue because of an accident.
As an aside, part of the reason the doctors were not all for C-sections in the CP cases is because C-sections, as invasive surgery, are dangerous. Everyone isn’t the same, sometimes really big arteries are in different places. You’re cutting something that isn’t transparent. They were judging the risks on 1. the baby being damaged, possibly dead 2. the mother being damaged, possibly dead. Usually doctors err on the side of the mother (she can have new babies, unless a botched C-section destroys her uterus).
As for testicular surgery, the bad nut would be removed later, and you probably would want to donate sperm before the first surgery anyway, in the off chance that something will go wrong shortly with the other. Close proximity, same genes, etc.
7.5 million, my ass.
Sorry, Dad, but if I get to incubate and love some streptococcus because a doctor screwed up, I’m gonna be looking for said doctor to take some responsibility for his or her actions. And if I pick up a nasty bug due to my own idiocy, then I get to step up and take responsibility for my own actions. See how this works?
Well, if you, as a surgeon, remove the wrong breast from my wife, particularly if a mastectomy is being performed to combat cancer, then she’ll own your ass before the dust clears. Because, stay with me here, you screwed up and get to own your actions. Besides, what kind of “replacement” are you thinking of? You are aware, I hope, that breasts don’t come two to a box. Therefore, finding a spare in the heat of the moment can be just a skosh difficult. Also, what is this “nominal fee” of which you speak?
GaWd already spoke to this, but I’m glad to not be one of this “most people” of which you speak.
And if someone loses a leg through their own idiocy, then said person looks rueful for the rest of their life. If, however, the overworked surgical staff fucks up and removes the wrong leg, then they, once more, get to accept responsibility for their actions.
None. Howzabout you?
None of what you described would I define as “the smallest of things”. YMODV
Because neither my wife nor myself had genetic counseling. Therefore, our daughter, born with Down Syndrome, is nobody’s fault. So, we took her home, and she’ll enter her teens in September. Nice kid, for the most part. But who would we ever be able to sue without being laughed out of court? Besides, we, (are you ready for it?) took responsibility.
Y’know what? I have a problem with that. Sounds like pure bullshit. Did this orthopedist fight this in court? Or did he take the course of least resistance and settle? Because I think that if the doctors involved in this sort of petty crap stood up and acted like they had a set, then these ridiculous situations would decrease.
Now you’re obfuscating and being silly again. Please turn the hyperbole down a bit so we can have a rational discussion. I have yet to endorse frivolous lawsuits(suing the power company because you climbed on a power pole to commit suicide and ended up a quadriplegic for life), or ridiculously high jury awards(eleventy billion?). I simply am not a fan of tort reform at all. Placing a cap on damages, economical or non-economical isn’t fair to those who are the “victim” of the [perceived] situation.
Only one gets the restitution because, if I am understanding your question, only one person experienced the overt actions of another that led to the injury/illness/maiming/etc. If I slip and fall and tear my ACL at home, there is only me to blame for the injury. If I go in to have my ACL repaired, and in the process of repairing it the doctor snips my medial collateral ligament either by accident or negligience, his actions have led to the new injury.
While that may not justify a settlement of “eleventy billion” dollars, it most certainly justifies a settlement of some sort, and in other more sensitive, more personal situations(where we’re not talking about a knee), certainly justifies well over $250K, or some other arbitrary capped number.
Sam
Damn! Forget to preview one time and look what happens. . .
See my previous post.
Sorry, but the Dr. doesn’t hafta be acting malicious. People in hospitals are acting in ways that affect other people’s lives. Therefore, they need to make damned sure that they don’t screw up. From the prep nurse to the surgeon to anyone else on the team. And since I experience pain and suffering because the surgeon cut off the wrong nut, which you have conveniently blamed on the prep nurse, then I’m gonna get something for that. Now, if I fall off of my bicycle and rip one of my yarbles off, then I was an idiot. I’ll go to the ER, and if they can stick that little feller back in there, great. If not, I was certainly a dumbass who’ll have a great poker night story for the future.
Nope, surgery isn’t safe. Neither is cutting off the wrong testicle. Or the wrong leg. Or the wrong breast.
You know all these cases being bandied about are ones that even Stevie Wonder could see the doctor fucked up. I’d be willing to wager that lawsuits for removing the wrong body part constitute less then 1% of all malpractice suits.
By your brilliant logic, we shouldn’t lock people up for murder. After all, people commit suicide every day and no-one gets sent to jail. Why should we lock someone up for killing a person? The person who shoots himself in the head and the person who gets shot in the head by someone else both suffer the same consequences.
The issue here, in case you missed it altogether, is not only making restitution to the victim; it’s also the notion of having some sort of punishment and deterrent so that the people who fuck up will be more careful next time. If my injury is due to my own negligence, then i have no-one to blame but myself. If it’s due to purely random and unlucky circumstances, then there’s no-one to blame at all. But if it’s due to someone else’s negligence, then that person should contribute to restoring me to my original state, and compensating me for the hassle and pain caused by their negligence.
Sheesh. Can’t you guys just get a room?
Talk about a hijacked thread. Sigh. It’s too late to salvage the original intent though, so carry on I guess.
You’re missing the point, probably out of stubbornness, too. THis isn’t a discussion about body parts, or percentages of suits involving blatant medical fuckups, or percentages of malpractice suits involving such blatant fuckups. This is a discussion in which you and qcomdrj have asserted that you know for sure that the man will vote X or Y way in a given situation without a proven track record of it.
Of course I mention cases in which Ray Charles could tell that somebody fucked up-I’m neither a medical professional, nor a lawyer. Also, most of these blatantly obvious cases have occured and have been in the news in the last dozen or 20 years. I also mention these obvious situations because maybe you’ll see the point and stop focusing on the minutiae, but that’s obviously not going to happen.
Instead of being on-topic and discussing John Edwards as Veep hopeful, he’s been blamed for the rising cost of insurance, healthcare and accused of being an ambulance chaser over one case in specific*.
Sam
*- yes qcomdrj, I know you haven’t called him an ambulance chaser in your posts, so before you point that out to me, here’s a pre-emptive “I know you haven’t”.
Murder is intentional. Manslaughter is accidental, typically due to negligence. Accidental death is not punished if not determined to be due to negligence. Why is the penalty for murder greater than the penalty for manslaughter? Hmm.
By your logic, we just lock everyone up who by some accident caused someone to die.
Doctors already have incentive not to fuck up in the first place moron. Nobody wants to go to a doctor who has people dying on him in surgery. Word of mouth spreads pretty quick. They get blacklisted by the AMA. They get licenses pulled. Making them pay arbitrarily large amounts of money serves no other purpose.
Also, doctors who make mistakes even once can develop psychological problems, loss of confidence in one’s ability. You seem to be under the impression that the doctor a) doesn’t care that a mistake was made, and b) did it intentionally and/or as a result of incompetence.
One of my links indicates that one doctor, wrongfully sued, incurred $91K worth of legal fees to pay for the case she won.
She can’t sue to get the money back from the negligence of determining the likelihood of winning of the case on the part of the plaintiff.
Not all problems are blamed on the prep nurse. There are usually about 20 people, give or take, in the surgical theater at one time. Scrub nurses, prep nurses, surgical techs, radiology techs, anesthesiologists, surgeons, people watching, etc. Hell, Jerry Seinfeld might drop a junior mint in the body cavity. That is a lot of people who can each make a very minor mistake that can have massive consequences. Other fields don’t really have this problem. Sure, brake mechanics can kill someone by making a mistake, and airline pilots, but usually the pilots die too, so nobody can sue him. So they sue the airline that hired him. Most lawsuits are from the mentality “someone needs to pay”, and this shouldn’t be.
Would you rather not have surgeries at all, and see if that helps? And Level 1 traumas don’t shut down because of mistakes, they shut down because of a combination of a)extremely high risk patients, b)very little reimbursement (under or uninsured patients), and c)lawsuits from families of people who would have died if the trauma team hadn’t been there to begin with. See my beef?
Gawd, I’m not blaming John Edwards for rising medical costs, he was one person. I am saying he won’t do much to stop them. He voted against it once, as did all Democrats. It isn’t a large leap of logic to believe that he will vote against it again.
Oh, and Gawd. I really wanted to vote for Kerry until Edwards came up. I certainly would have had he picked Gephart. I still may. Doesn’t mean that my previous thread about him not wanting to release his divorce records doesn’t stand. Just that lots of things concern me. Things concern me about Bush and Cheney too. I somehow end up in the double negative quadrant on the Political Compass. (-2.22, -0.77) Not by much, but I do. That’s why I spend so much time with MSF. That’s why I am on the International Health Committee for the AMA-MSS. Tort reform is just very important to me. I find it hard to believe that a state such as Cali that is that liberal in ideology allowed it to pass.
Well, it had to do with cost and program cutting. The Governator was going to chop a whole bunch of programs, and I guess the congress thought this would be a compromise. This was Arnold’s version of the Worker’s Compensation bill that had been passed right before Gray Davis was ousted.
This also limits Physical/Physio therapy and Chiropractic visits COMBINED to a TOTAL of like 20 visits per incident, or something equally as ludicrous.
Sam
Probably so. And? Do you think that if someone has the wrong appendage lopped off, they should just suck it up and get on with their life? Or should the doctor who actually did it be held responsible for his or her actions? I already said that the orthopedist mentioned above shouldn’t have been sued. But if that ortho left a fucking glove in my leg, causing complications and infection, then he and I are gonna go at it. And while I might enjoy an underwater knife fight, suing him for making a mistake will work, too.
Learn to read, nimrod. If a doctor fucks up, then he gets to step up and take responsibility for his actions. Wanna blame it on a prep nurse? Then the doctor gets to sue the prep nurse. But since this hypothetical doctor is the one who made the actual mistake, then it’s his problem. And I really kinda doubt that word of mouth spreads as well as you seem to think that it does. It’s like someone said earlier, this is sorta like the thin blue line. Docs cover for each other.
And if Jerry Seinfeld drops a Junior Mint in me, then I’ll sue him. Of course, I’ll also sue the surgical team that allowed a fucking comedian into the operating theatre, the hospital and the girl who spurned my advances in the seventh grade. That oughta show her who’s yucky.
Would you like to keep speaking in hyperbole and see if that’ll bring anyone around to your POV?
Actually, yeah. If you’re right about the above and not just speaking out of your ass again. Alas, I lack the time to look information up to determine whether you’re actually right. Y’see, I have a job. (Sorry, Sparky, but you had to see that coming)