Basically you are complaining about a system that was created by the Mal Practice Insurers.The Annoyed Man wrote:[rant]marksiwel wrote:Really when you look at it people are suing doctors at the same rate as they were in the 80's 90's its just with inflation its more money buts in % its about the same.74novaman wrote:Or Tort Reform?
Tort reform just makes it harder for the non rich to sue.
Not that our Torts process is perfect or anything
That argument is the refuge of an industry that doesn't want to see its cash cow gored. Medical malpractice attorneys have a unique opportunity to fix the problem themselves by taking the moral high ground and refusing to take cases that their experience has taught them are nonsense. They don't. Instead, they cynically pursue the suit anyway, knowing that they are going to get a big fat paycheck anyway — because they know that there will be a settlement in most cases since malpractice insurers will rather pay the settlement than pay to litigate. That is a cynical, ethically indefensible abuse of the system. Of course the problem is that attorneys get to decide what is ethical and what isn't, even though it doesn't take a legal genius to see the basic corruption of that system.
If the client believes they have a claim, how is it unethical to sue?
Poor people who sue aren't paying anything unless they win. Also if you lose, are you willing to pay for the Insurers Millions of Dollars in Legal bills.The Annoyed Man wrote: Loser pays is the solution to that. Any attorney who advises a client to pursue a frivolous suit and then loses, risks facing competence charges brought by their client before the Bar when their client has to pay the costs of losing a frivolous suit. And that applies to the wealthy plaintiff as well as well as the poor plaintiff. Justice should be blind, and the consequences for frivolity should not be excused just because you are poor, any more than the consequences of malpractice should be visited upon the poor to a greater degree than upon the rich. And there is no justifiable reason to insulate attorneys from the effects of legal frivolity.
Example (partly based on a real case), guy gets his x=ray, its read wrong, they say he needs a ton of surgery. He doesn't have insurance (he's poor) so he still has to pay for his medical bills, then he finds out that his doctors screwed up. Is he going to risk further debt in a situation in which American Medical Association will side with the doctor 99% of the time, also the hospital is spending millions on Lawyers. Do you want to risk going further in debt based on a crooked system?
Also the poor have to go to worse hospitals than the rich, where the doctors are from worse schools, and are more likely to commit mal practice (Gross Negligence.) So now your making it harder for them to seek Justice.
YOU and Me are the Plaintiffs ala Private Citizens, we are the ones who collect these settlements, we are the ones who get the MONEY if we win. If you made it possible Lawyers have to pay for losing, then no lawyer would take a case because he couldnt afford to eat. More than 90% of the cases have merit. You can try and sue your lawyer for giving you bad "advice" but the lawyer would have to be incompetent on a GRAND Scale. Juries will often time disobey the law and Real Honest cases will lose because of Juries. ALso Lawyers suing lawyers, not gonna happen. You would make the whole system worse for your average person.The Annoyed Man wrote: If a complaint is legitimate, then plaintiff's attorney stands a very good chance of winning, and the cost of trial goes to the loser. If a complaint is frivolous, then plaintiff's attorney stands a very good chance of losing, and the plaintiff gets to pay the cost of being a punk. However, plaintiff then gets a chance to recoup his losses by suing his attorney for giving him bad legal advice, and now the shoe is on the other foot, where it's needed to be for a long, long time. The pendulum swung waaaaaaaaaaayyyy to the legal profession's side and then got pinned there artificially by ATLA and other organizations of legal professionals who are over-represented both as seat holders and hallway sharks in Congress. It is way past time for the pendulum to swing the other way in the interest of private citizens' pocketbooks.
You are for having Attorneys make money but in your scenario PEOPLE cant make any money or collect on it. also Lawyers do have to answer to the Bar Association who do throw people out of the Lawyer clubThe Annoyed Man wrote: I'm all for attorneys making money for legitimate reason[/b]s, and I hope they make a ton of it because I am a capitalist at heart and they should be able to earn a good living based on the cost and work invested in education and establishing a practice. But I don't want them to make a red cent by representing a client without regard to the legitimacy of their complaint when there is no possibility of their not coming away with a settlement — not based on the merits of the case, but based entirely on the cost of litigation.
The Annoyed Man wrote: That is the entire point of the whole thing right there. Malpractice lawsuits render malpractice meaningless when they are no longer based on the legitimacy of the complaint, but rather on a cost of settlement versus a cost of litigation calculation. Civil litigation involves an element of risk for the plaintiff and his/her attorney in every facet of civil law except malpractice (and possibly P.I.) That is not to say that genuine medical malpractice doesn't exist. It definitely does (as does legal malpractice). It just needs to be taken seriously for what it is, and not as some industry cash cow for a privileged class of attorneys.
Who regulates doctors' malpractice behavior? Attorneys.
Who regulates attorneys' malpractice behavior? Other attorneys. That's just a little too convenient in my book, and it is a recipe for exactly the system we have right now.
Doctors are regulated by Doctors aka American Medical Association which if Doctors are taken to court for Mal Practice the Judges give absolute difference to what is called "Custom" being the customary practices of doctors, so if you get a Doctor on the stand to say "every time this happens the doctors does THIS (injury illness), regardless of the cons Death/ injury doctors are not held liable. Doctors the only Industry that get Regulated by Doctors, all other industries are regulated by Courts.
We agree on that. What they (Insurers) need to do is fight these bad cases. Its encouraging people to take advantage.The Annoyed Man wrote: Any attorney who takes a malpractice case he knows to be illegitimate simply because he/she is guaranteed a settlement payout is no better than the lowest ambulance chaser and he/she heaps dishonor on the profession.
Once again you and me are the PlaintiffsThe Annoyed Man wrote: I wouldn't use an attorney like that for stink bait.
BTW, in case this sounds like attorney bashing, my best friend is an attorney who brings honor to his profession. I've known a number of honorable attorneys over the years, and I have nothing but the highest regard for them. I just see a system that is broken, and I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
...or maybe I'm an idiot of the nth magnitude. I just REALLY don't like what I see, and legal frivolity is not the only cause of the dysfunction, but it definitely contributes to it, and it definitely can be controlled if the political will exists to do so. Sleazy people are always going to be sleazy, and they will find other ways to manipulate the law to their advantage, but that is not an excuse to not reform a law if it will close off at least one avenue available to sleaziness.
[/rant]
Many of you know I used to work in an ER. At the time, we had an ER doctor named Bruce Fagel. This is what he does now. I remember talking to him when he was preparing for his Bar exam. I asked why he wanted to be a lawyer since he already had a good career as a doctor. He replied that he was motivated to become a malpractice defense attorney. He told me that, at the time anyway, 95% of malpractice suits never get to trial, but of the remaining 5%, the doctor wins most of the time. He said that this was because in the other 95%, the malpractice insurer, who is the decision maker in whether or not to litigate, decides that the settlement is cheaper than litigating, even though litigation would be found in favor of the doctor most of the time.
So he became an attorney, and all his high-falutin' standards went out the window once he realized that being on the plaintiff's side is where the real money is. Today he is one of Beverly Hills' most prominent malpractice attorneys. What a putz.
Here is a fun link
http://carolina.hsinjurylaw.com/blog/vi ... ayouts.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
97% of Cases have Merit (according to Harvard)
There has been no increase in Mal Patrice suits, its just more money because of inflation
The Mal Practice Insurances have people jumping at the boogie man.
The Majority of cases are good, over 90%. Also the Judges can throw out cases too. Why does no one seem to mention this?
I think there is alot of bad information out there and TORT is confusing enough, but those pushing for Tort Reform have some Serious backers in the Insurance Industry, I dont trust them.
. The second day in the hospital the nurse, while looking at my daughters chart, says hey... I am not suppose to say anything to patients but one of the medications you have been taking has been known to cause blood clots in the eyes. Guess what, that was what was causing the vision loss. We immediately brought this to the attention of the neurologist the hospital assigned and the internist, who acted as if he was on commission with all the tests he recommended. Both vehemently denied that said medication could cause these problems and said it had to be something else. well she went home and in two weeks the vision problem started again. back we went only this time my daughter quit taking said medication. The treatments brought her vision back but her optic nerve is now damaged in that eye. If these doctors had of told us when we asked that the side affects from said medication could cause this, she would have quit the medication then and not damaged her eye further. The info on said medication is out there for the world to see. Heck...we found it on the internet. Had to dig as the company that makes it does not make it easy to find. 
