ABC Nightline Tuesday -- Medical malpractive lawsuits

Nightline Daily E-Mail
October 21, 2003


TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: We always hear about those malpractice awards which are either "exorbitant" if you're on one side, or "just" if you're on the other. But how do juries arrive at those numbers? What is a disability worth? How much should a botched operation cost? What is a life worth?

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Bear with me for a little while on this one. "12 Angry Men," the original with Henry Fonda, not the remake, is one of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend it. And that's what I always thought being on a jury would be like. So I was thrilled when I was actually chosen to be on a jury, less thrilled when the judge said that I would be the foreman. This was in a medical malpractice case. The surgeon had done a great job except for one thing, he cut the wrong body part. The poor patient, and she was relatively poor, had to undergo a number of operations to correct his mistake, at sizable cost. The doctor brought in all of the resources available to a large medical group, a team of attorneys, and a host of expert witnesses. I thought the case was pretty straightforward, the doctor had screwed up, all we had to do was decide on damages and we'd be out by lunchtime. I was wrong.

None of my fellow jurors wanted to hold the doctor accountable. They felt he had done a good job, mistakes are made, and did not want to label him "negligent," which a verdict for the patient would have done. Two jurors pointed out that he had ten experts while the patient only had one. When I pointed out that the judge had explicitly warned us against counting witnesses, they both said 'We're not counting& but they had ten and she only had one." I was unwilling to give the doctor a complete pass. In the end, I hung the jury. I am not Henry Fonda. I convinced no one.

Tonight's show will take you inside the jury process in a case where they ruled against the doctor. Now we have all heard about doctors going out of business, or all stopping certain procedures because malpractice insurance has gotten so expensive. How do juries arrive at those numbers? How much money would compensate for a life lost because of a medical mistake? How can anyone possibly answer that question? John Donvan will take you inside the jury in one case, and they'll talk about how they answered unanswerable questions. Ted will anchor, I hope you'll join us. If you do go out and rent "12 Angry Men," you can't watch it instead of Nightline. That just wouldn't be right.

We hope you'll join us.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
Washington, D.C.

About the greedy poor people and the hard working doctors who are nearly destitute because of malpractice awards.

Someone here (I wish they could post it again) posted that there were only like 2 $5million plus malpractice awards one year in New Jersey, which is one of the most litigous states in the union (it does have the highest density of lawyers).

It's all a scam folks. The owners of this society have an easier time if they get us, the proles, to fight their battles for them. This is why most of the gentry hates unions, trial lawyers, and other assorted "communists". They tell us to.

Doctors win them 67% of the time nationwide. Primarily because of the mindset most jurors have, i.e., "mistakes are made." There are enormous "pre-loads" that have to be overcome before a plaintiff can be successful in these cases. I get a hoot out of tort "reformers" who claim that juries are running amok and that they have to be reigned in. I also get a hoot out of the assertion that jury awards in medical negligence cases are responsible for the increase in malpractice insurance rates for doctors. Recently I read that 5% of the doctors in Mass. are responsible for 100% of the malpractice. Remarkably, every physician's insurance rates went up despite this statistic. That's like your neighbor getting into an auto collision and having your rates go up as a result. I hope that this special will shine a light on this issue.

I can see it both ways because obviously, if a patient incurres injury they deserve to be compensated.

But..

I work in a hospital, with doctors. These doctors have all been sued at some point in time (ALL doctors are eventually sued) and usually the cases are disputable.

But what is a doctor supposed to do when he's sued for $50 million and only has $2 million worth of insurance?

A lot of doctors I've talked to have told me that if they had to do it over again they never would have become doctors. The insurance hastle is not worth it for them.

It's a sad situation, and one that's only going to get worse.

This email just came in. 

Nightline Daily E-Mail
October 21, 2003


TONIGHT'S FOCUS HAS CHANGED: We were going to bring you Nightline's next installment in the ABC week-long health care series "Critical Condition: Healthcare in America", but there's a breaking news medical story that we feel deserves our attention tonight.

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Terri Schiavo is a 39 year-old woman who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years. A heart attack left her comatose in 1990. Her parents say she is responsive and they feel that she should continue to live, assisted by a feeding tube. Her husband told her doctors to discontinue the feeding tube last Wednesday and a Florida court backed his request. He says that his wife told him she wanted to die. That's the main debate. Tonight, Governor Jeb Bush signed a bill passed by the Florida legislature ordering the feeding tube reinserted. Many people are scatching their heads tonight. Why does the legislature have the right to do that? The case had already been through the Florida court system and will probably end up in the United States Supreme Court. Others feel that anyone who is alive — in a vegetative state or not — has the right to live. We'll have a background piece by Jeffrey Kaufman, he's covering the story for ABC News in Tallahassee. Ted will talk to several guests about the various aspects of the case: medical, ethical and legal. We hope you'll join us.

Gerry Holmes and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
Washington, D.C.