Lawsuit Information Center

May 18, 2011

Doctors and Malpractice: The Human Toll on Doctors

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.

May 13, 2011

$459 Million Junk Fax Verdict Reversed

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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, actually, this was a bench trial but let’s not ruin the tort reformers narrative. I’m sure all the tort reform folks will pretend that (1) a jury decided this, (2) this was a tort action, and (3) there is a chance this is a collectible verdict against a siding, window, and gutter installation company that was in business between 2002 to 2004.

But, look, I think these junk faxes lawsuits are a little ridiculous myself. The idea of plaintiffs – or frankly their lawyers – getting money because they got a junk fax just seems ridiculous to me. I realize there is an economic burden associated with junk faxes and these claims might not be as petty in the macro picture as their are in the micro-picture. But on some human level, it is a fax, it is a cold call, let’s not get so worked up about nothing.

March 25, 2011

Mississippi High Court on Experts and Collateral Sources

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 struck Plaintiffs’ expert from testifying as to the standard of care even though the expert had already been accepted as an expert on the nursing care given by the hospital. Had the expert been permitted to testify, she would have testified as to the standard of care for IV infiltrations and that the hospital breached that standard.

The Mississippi high court also make a good call for plaintiffs on the question of the collateral source set off when the amount of the liens/bills have been reduced.

March 14, 2011

New York Car Accident Verdicts

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 “serious injury” before a lawsuit can be brought against the at-fault driver. While there is some question that having a magical threshold that needs to be crossed is going to be fraught with great flaws, there is no question that this New York scheme, as desultory as the justice it might bring, keeps minor personal injury car accident cases out of court.

What’s my point? My point is that this completely distorts average car accident verdicts in New York. I read Metro Verdicts Monthly and Mealey’s which provide a lot of individual verdicts in car accident cases in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. It is amazing how many jury verdicts there are for $10,000 when, if you look at the case, is really not such a bad result. New York has none of these cases deflating their average.

March 9, 2011

Topamax Lawsuit

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 demonstrated efficacy in reducing the frequency and severity of seizures in patients.

Topamax works by affecting neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that reduces brain activity, while glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter that increases brain activity. By modulating the balance between these neurotransmitters, Topamax helps to prevent excessive electrical activity in the brain, reducing the likelihood of seizures.

Topamax Birth Injury Lawsuits

February 24, 2011

Average Jury Verdict in Florida

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 that is really no longer meaningful. The better measure, the median verdict, was $149,411.

The breakdown of the injuries relative to the verdicts in the study was interesting:

February 21, 2011

Tennessee Verdicts

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

tennessee verdicts 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 Tennessee personal injury cases so we don’t lump injury cases in with contract disputes. Jury Verdict Research would suggest that the median personal injury verdict in Tennessee is under $18,000. The median is a lot less sexy number but it is far more telling of the actual picture.

Get examples of jury verdicts in Tennessee from 2010-2014

February 14, 2011

Certificate of Merit Requirements in Malpractice Cases

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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.

November 26, 2010

Obama Gets Stitches from Basketball Injury

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 person who fouled President Obama. I have estimated his time is worth $10 million an hour to the American people. These stitches cost us 45 minutes!

November 5, 2010

Unnecessary Heart Stents

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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. I suspect unnecessary stent medical malpractice lawsuits will be the next wave of malpractice lawsuits. In many jurisdictions, although I suspect not in Maryland when all is said and done, there will be a great case for punitive damages.

Stent lawsuits in jurisdictions with punitive damages involving a hospital systematically providing unnecessary heart stents may be big cases. Punitive damage claims against individual doctors are typically of limited utility because the doctors have limited assets – relatively speaking – and the insurance policies do not cover intentional torts. Obviously, hospitals have more insurance and deeper pockets.