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 In Virginia and many other states, statutory caps limit the amount of compensation that an aggrieved patient can recover from her doctor. To bypass this limit, a victim of medical malpractice may want not to be considered a “patient.” This motivation brought the IS FETUS A PATIENT? question to the Virginia Supreme Court in Simpson v….
By Alex Stein Under Georgia statute (that exists in other states as well), allegations of medical malpractice “arising out of the provision of emergency medical care in a hospital emergency department or obstetrical unit or in a surgical suite immediately following the evaluation or treatment of a patient in a hospital emergency department” must show “gross…
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 On October 18, Maryland’s Court of Appeals has delivered a precedential ruling on the applicability of the state’s limitation and repose statutes to suits for wrongful death that allegedly resulted from medical malpractice. Mummert v. Alizadeh— A.3d —-, 2013 WL 5663105 (Md. 2013). This ruling dealt with the following set of facts: A…
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 Alex Stein This method was pioneered by South Dakota and Indiana that set up special “informed consent” requirements for abortion procedures, SDCL § 34-23A-10.1 and IC 16-34-2-1.1. Under these requirements, physicians must tell the pregnant woman (inter alia) that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” with whom…
By Alex Stein Damage caps are widespread. A typical cap provision precludes medical malpractice victims from recovering more than a specified sum for pain, suffering and other noneconomic harms. These caps vary between $250,000 (as in California that might soon increase its cap by a referendum) and a $1,500,000-$500,000 scale (as in Florida). Some state supreme…
By Alex Stein Similar to many other states, Oklahoma has a statute prescribing that suits alleging medical malpractice must be verified by an affidavit from a qualified medical expert. Suits unaccompanied by a proper affidavit must be stricken out. This statute is part of what I call – and commend – as a procedural tort reform:…
By Alex Stein Connecticut’s Appellate Court ruled in yesterday’s decision that hospitals and doctors can successfully sue their patients’ attorneys for filing a vexatious malpractice suit. The Court also ruled that the trial judge’s decision that the patient’s suit was vexatious will often create an estoppel against the attorney. The attorney will consequently be precluded from…
