I’ve always wondered how much tort litigation deterred bad conduct. The word tort means bad act. Tort litigation is intended to both reimburse the victim of bad acts and to deter future bad acts. Studies tend to show that in motor vehicle accidents the laws really do not substantially effect peoples’ driving. Most people assume that this is because drivers of vehicles do not wish to get in motor vehicle accidents because they could be hurt or killed. They have a built deterrent factor – injury. Medical providers do not have the same incentive. People may very well have an Read more…
Category: Tort Reform
I had a great guest on the air on December 23, 2017. The podcast his here. I went to a seminar at the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association on medical malpractice to keep up my continuing legal education. One of the speakers was a former president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, Pete Flowers. He is one of the name partners in Meyers and Flowers. They handle all sorts of cases, including medical neglect, and a fair amount of medical product liability, and other things. As he got up to speak he was introduced as having settled a case for $1 billion. After Read more…
HR 1215 advancing through the house, the subject of medical neglect to come up again. HR 15 would limit noneconomic damages to $250,000 on medical neglect claims throughout the country. This would affect states’ rights to decide their own law about medical liability by taking away the right to make a decision. The bill is call the Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017. Always remember, whenever you read the title of a bill, it does the opposite of what you might suggest. This bill protects medical providers from their bad actions. With the radio show a couple of weeks ago we Read more…
The court in Steak and Shake vs the Worker’s Compensation Commission addressed what is now a common issue in politics. Groups in Illinois wish to limit liability for workers’ compensation claims by only allowing the case to be compensable if it is the “primary cause” of the condition. This naturally sounds reasonable to people in the public. Why shouldn’t the primary cause be the test? What people fail to appreciate is that “primary cause” in workers’ compensation claims really means eliminating aggravations of pre-existing injuries as claims. The Steak and Shake case is it is a good example of why suing “primary cause” as Read more…
Medical error is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. The first two are heart disease and cancer. This, according to a British Medical Journal analysis by Martin Makary and Michael Daniel, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. This article follows on several studies, including the landmark Institute of Medicine “To Err Is Human.” In To Err Is Human The Institute of Medicine, the branch of the government that studies medical issues, found that 98,000 people were dying from medical errors in the United States. This put the number of deaths at higher than Read more…
We had the honor of having George Patrick, a workers compensation lawyer from Indiana, on the radio on Saturday, March 14, 2015, Pi day. This is especially interesting to me because I have heard so many people talk about the differences between the Illinois Worker’s Compensation system in the Indiana Workers Compensation System. Some people believe that Illinois should save money by following in the footsteps of Indiana. This interview followed the recent ProPublic/NPR report about how states are demolishing their workers compensation systems. Judges have called the modern workers compensation systems “inhumane” according to ProPublica/NPR. In the same week, OSHA (Labor Read more…
The Center for Justice and Democracy released a study discussing the contingency fee system in the United States of America. It is titled “Courthouse Cornerstone: Contingency Fees and Their Importance for Everyday Americans.” The report discussed the contingency fee system. Contingency fees are frequently used by lawyers in order to help their clients. They are especially useful for people who cannot afford to pay high lawyer fees associated with litigation. The study concluded that contingency fees are helpful to attorneys and clients. Contingency fee lawyers take large risks associated with a claim. They invest a great deal of time and Read more…
Tort reform advocates frequently claim physician supply is a tort reform issue. Proponents claim that unless there is reform physicians will flee the state. As an Illinois injury claim lawyer who accepts medical malpractice claims I believe this is relevant to Illinois law because lawmakers here have tried to cap damages in Illinois medical malpractice claims three times. The Illinois Supreme Court has held these caps unconstitutional each time. In a recent article entitled “Does Tort Reform Affect Physicians Supply – Evidence from Texas“, David Hymen, Charles Silver and Bernard Black examine the question. David Hymen is from University of Illinois, School Read more…