By Alex Stein Readers interested in medical malpractice might be interested in seeing—and commenting on—my new article, The Domain of Torts, forthcoming in 117 Colum. L. Rev. (2017). This Article advances a novel positive theory of the law of torts that grows out of a careful and extensive reading of the case law. The Article’s core…
By Alex Stein The same story involving a federally qualified health center (FQHC) repeats itself again, again, and now again: see Phillips v. Generations Family Health Center, — Fed.Appx. —- (2016), 2016 WL 5340278 (2d Cir. 2016). A patient from Connecticut receives medical treatment from a physician who works at a Connecticut-based facility known as Generations…
By Shailin Thomas Artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms are the centerpieces of many exciting technologies currently in development. From self-driving Teslas to in-home assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home, AI is swiftly becoming the hot new focus of the tech industry. Even those outside Silicon Valley have taken notice — Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and…
By Christopher Robertson As many readers of this blog know, the FDA requires that, prior to entering the market, companies prove safety and efficacy for each intended use of their products, but physicians are then free to prescribe the products for any other uses. (Companies are not allowed to promote off-label uses however.) A recent national survey by…
By Alex Stein Arbitration clauses in nursing home agreements are pretty much standard. Whether such a clause precludes tort actions complaining about the resident’s wrongful death is consequently an important issue. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recently addressed this issue in Taylor v. Extendicare Health Facilities, Inc., 147 A.3d 490 (Pa. 2016). In that case, the resident’s family members sued…
By Wendy S. Salkin On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS)—an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—released a final rule that “will revise the requirements that Long-Term Care facilities [LTCs] must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs” (1). (Almost all LTCs receive funds from Medicare or Medicaid.) This is…
By Matthew H. H. Young What will happen to the current medical malpractice system under a single-payer system? To answer this question, I started by looking at the information provided by Physicians for a National Health Program, whose mission is to replace the ACA (Affordable Care Act) with single-payer. On their website under Single-Payer FAQs, it…
By Christopher Robertson Whether it is Ebola, H1N1, the season flu, or the next nasty bug that we cannot yet even imagine, if we wanted to efficiently spread the disease, one could not do much better than packing several hundred people into a cylinder for a few hours, while they eat, drink, defecate, and urinate.…
By Dov Fox Everything went fine the last time for Melissa Cook, when the 48-year old mother of four carried a child for a family back in 2013 to supplement her office job salary. This time was different. First were the triplets. She had been impregnated with three embryos, created using eggs from a 20-something donor and…
By Alex Stein About forty-five years ago, tort reforms took off and states have started capping compensation awards for victims of medical malpractice. The plaintiffs bar countered this initiative by raising different constitutional challenges against caps. Those challenges alluded to equal protection, due process, separation of powers, and the general right to a jury trial. Some…
