By John A. Robertson The Rubio-Huckabee claim that actual and legal personhood start at conception has drawn trenchant responses from Art Caplan on the medical uncertainty of such a claim and David Orentlicher, drawing on Judith Thomson’s famous article, that even if a fetus is a person, woman would not necessarily have a duty to…
by Martín Hevia In 2015, the Argentine Supreme Court is to hear a case involving the right to die, death with dignity, and informed consent. Because of a car accident in the Province of Neuquén, M.D., the patient, has been in a permanent, irreversible, vegetative state for 18 years. His sisters and curators have requested…
By Alex Stein In its recent decision, Zauflik v. Pennsbury School Dist., — A.3d —- (Pa. 2014), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upheld the constitutionality of the statutory $500,000 cap on tort compensation payable by the local government. This decision was delivered in a case involving a student who lost her leg in an accident in…
By Alex Stein We are just in mid-March, but yesterday’s decision of the Florida Supreme Court, McCall v. United States, — So.3d —-, 2014 WL 959180 (Fla. 2014), is – and will likely remain – the most important medical malpractice decision of 2014. The case at bar presented a particularly egregious example of medical malpractice: a…
By Alex Stein Schroeder v. Weighall — P.3d —-, 2014 WL 172665 (Wash. 2014), is the second Washington Supreme Court’s decision that voids the Legislature’s time bar for medical malpractice suits. The first decision, DeYoung v. Providence Medical Center, 960 P.2d 919 (Wash. 1998), voided an eight-year repose provision for violating the constitutional prohibition on special…
By Alex Stein Georgia’s Senate is considering a far-reaching medical malpractice reform: see here. If implemented, this reform would substitute the conventional malpractice regime by a no-fault compensation scheme for patients sustaining medical injuries. This scheme will be modeled on the extant workers’ compensation regime. An injured patient will submit her claim to a special administrative…
By Alex Stein Oregon has a statute capping noneconomic damages recoverable in medical malpractice suits at $500,000. The Oregon Supreme Court decided that this cap is unconstitutional insofar as it clashes with a person’s right to recover full jury-assessed compensation for injuries recognized as actionable in 1857 when Oregon adopted its constitution. Specifically, it ruled that…
By Scott Burris In a Perspective in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, Michelle Mello and Glenn Cohen, both professors at Harvard, write about the prospects for using the constitutional Taxing Power to adopt innovative laws to advance public health objectives. Cueing off the Supreme Court’s decision in the Affordable Care Act litigation, Mello…
