American Medical News writes an article about an important topic: how doctors emotionally deal with malpractice lawsuits. Let’s be honest, medical malpractice lawyers on both sides of the “v” largely ignore this issue. But, speaking of being honest, this article is anything but honest. It profiles three doctors: (1) a…
The Georgia Court of Appeals has tossed a $459 million junk fax verdict on Wednesday, finding that the trial judge erred in concluding that the defendant sent 306,000 unsolicited fax advertisements because plaintiffs did not prove the faxes had been received. Wow, $459 million for faxes? Juries are crazy. Well,…
The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a directed verdict for a hospital in a nursing medical malpractice action in which the plaintiff suffered IV infiltration – leakage of fluid from an IV into the patient’s tissues from an IV line – and burn injuries. The directed verdict from the trial court…
The average car/truck/motorcycle accident verdict in New York is $837,020, which is stunningly high compared to most other jurisdictions. Why is this? Are New York jurors just that much more generous than, say, jurors in Maryland? The answer is that New York’s no-fault accident law requires that plaintiffs suffer a…
Topamax, also known by its generic name topiramate, is an antiepileptic medication developed by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. It was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996. Initially, Topamax was primarily used for the treatment of epilepsy and seizures, as it…
Florida Personal Injury Settlement Statistics According to a not-so-recently published Jury Verdict Research study, the average verdict in a personal injury lawsuit in Florida is $1,732,150. Huge and almost invariably uncollectable verdicts, because of caps on a defendant’s ability to pay, and overturned verdicts inflate the average to a number…
As reported in the Tennessean today, Tennessee juries last year awarded a grand total of $92 million, according to the 2009-10 Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary. The average jury verdict was $400,359 last year. Apparently, this is in civil jury cases altogether. It would have been helpful to breakup…
The Minnesota Court of Appeals decided an interesting medical malpractice case addressing the bar plaintiffs’ malpractice lawyers must clear when presenting a certificate of merit that will survive summary judgment. The gist of this case is that the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against a few neurologists for failing to diagnose…
President Obama got 12 stitches after being elbowed in the lip during a basketball game. Who elbows the President of the United States? What an idiot! (Unless, of course, the President tried to drive the lane. In which case, he had it coming.) I’m bringing a class action against the…
If you Google “unnecessary heart stents” most of the searches come up discussing the stent debacle at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Maryland. But Maryland might just be the tipping point. The same health care system with the same financial incentives for doctors for using heart stents exists throughout the country.…