Tort Law

  • Read more: Another Blow to Tort Reform in Florida: Statute Allowing Defendants in Medical Malpractice Suits to Hold Ex Parte Interviews with the Aggrieved Patient’s Care Providers Declared Unconstitutional
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    Another Blow to Tort Reform in Florida: Statute Allowing Defendants in Medical Malpractice Suits to Hold Ex Parte Interviews with the Aggrieved Patient’s Care Providers Declared Unconstitutional

    By Alex Stein STEIN on Medical Malpractice has recently published a survey of noteworthy court decisions in the field for 2017. This survey includes an important decision, Weaver v. Myers, 229 So.3d 1118 (Fla. 2017), that voided Florida statute allowing defendants in medical malpractice suits to hold ex parte interviews with the aggrieved patient’s care providers….

  • Read more: President Trump’s Tort Reform
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    President Trump’s Tort Reform

    By Alex Stein President Trump’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018 proposes a thoroughgoing reform of our medical malpractice system [Executive Office of the President of the United States, Major Savings and Reforms, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2018, at 114 (2017) (hereinafter, the “Budget”)]. The reform’s stated goals are “[to] reduce defensive medicine ……

  • Read more: Tort Law: Public and Private
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    Tort Law: Public and Private

    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…

  • Read more: Trap for the Unwary Works Again: Federal Healthcare and the Limitations Provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act
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    Trap for the Unwary Works Again: Federal Healthcare and the Limitations Provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act

    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…

  • Read more: Does an Arbitration Clause in a Nursing Home Agreement Preclude Tort Actions Relating to the Resident’s Wrongful Death?
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    Does an Arbitration Clause in a Nursing Home Agreement Preclude Tort Actions Relating to the Resident’s Wrongful Death?

    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…

  • Read more: Tort Reform in Oregon: Constitutional, After All?
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    Tort Reform in Oregon: Constitutional, After All?

    By Alex Stein Three years ago, Oregon’s Supreme Court voided the state’s $500,000 cap on noneconomic damages for medical malpractice for violating the constitutional guarantee that “In all civil cases the right of Trial by Jury shall remain inviolate” (Or. Const., Art. I, § 17, as interpreted in Lakin v. Senco Products, Inc., 987 P.2d 463,…

  • Read more: Patient Fall: Medical Malpractice or General Tort?
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    Patient Fall: Medical Malpractice or General Tort?

    By Alex Stein Courts coalesce around the view that patient fall injuries are actionable only as medical malpractice except when the care provider acts with intent or malice. This approach gives providers of medical care all the protections that benefit defendants in medical malpractice cases (compulsory suit-screening panel procedure, merit certificate / affidavit as a prerequisite…

  • Read more: Fixing the Broken Law of Military Medical Malpractice for Birth-Related Injuries
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    Fixing the Broken Law of Military Medical Malpractice for Birth-Related Injuries

    By Alex Stein and Dov Fox Bill of Health bloggers Alex Stein and Dov Fox have just filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of U.S. Air Force Major Heather Ortiz and her baby, who were denied legal remedies for obstetric malpractice by military doctors that left the baby with severe brain damage. The case is No….

  • Read more: Uninsured Practice of Medicine as Actionable Tort
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    Uninsured Practice of Medicine as Actionable Tort

    By Alex Stein A week ago, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has delivered an important decision on whether uninsured practice of medicine is actionable in torts. Jarrell v. Kaul, — A.3d —- 2015 WL 5683722 (N.J. 2015). This decision involved an uninsured anesthesiologist who allegedly provided negligent pain management treatment to a patient. Under New…

  • Read more: The Unintended Effect of Medicare on the Law of Torts
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    The Unintended Effect of Medicare on the Law of Torts

    By Alex Stein If you are familiar with about a thousand medical malpractice decisions and can’t think of an accident that might surprise you, read Stayton v. Delaware Health Corporation, — A.3d —- 2015 WL 3654325 (Del. 2015). Another reason for reading this new decision of the Delaware Supreme Court is that it has delivered an…