In the Trenches Fighting for Justice
December 15, 2007
A Small Firm Wages ’100 Years’ War’ on Tort Reform
Attorney Robert Peck and his nine law firm partners at the Center for Constitutional Litigation in Washington look like average plaintiffs lawyers when they walk into courtrooms around the country, but they’re not.They are the lawyers to trial lawyers nationwide, fighting “tort reform.” The center’s attorneys are on retainer for the trial lawyers’ trade group, the American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and pursue cases to overturn state and federal laws that they allege rob Americans of legal redress.
The center’s attorneys have 40 cases pending across the United States in which they are helping plaintiffs challenge government limits on tort claims, such as state caps on medical malpractice damages and federal legal immunity for rental car companies and gun manufacturers.
“We are often in a case because there’s some impediment to having your day in court,” Peck said.
Some Good News
November 14, 2007
Judge Larson’s decision was right on target.
The interesting thing about the brouhaha surrounding her decision is that in all the articles I have read, there is all this talks about the hospital interest and the doctors’ interest groups that appear to be fighting for this law. There is absolutely no talk about the insurance industry who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes in all this.
As if the trial lawyers are once again pinned against the doctors and hospitals.
From my talks with doctors I know, this strategy is no longer working–at least so far as the doctors are concerned. They have become wise to the fact that the insurance companies have worked hard to force the doctors and lawyers to be adversaries while they seat back and laugh all the way to the bank by gouging the doctors and blaming it on the trial lawyers.
If only the Sun Times and other publications were to bring the truth to their readers…
Judge strikes down Illinois malpractice caps
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane Joan Larsen on Tuesday sided with plaintiffs’ argument that the caps on non-economic damages such as pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases violate victims’ rights.The Illinois Hospital Association said in a statement it was disappointed in the verdict but it is confident an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court will successfully uphold the caps.
[...]
Those caps came after a lengthy, intense debate two years ago over how
to help doctors deal with soaring malpractice insurance rates. The caps
were a cornerstone of the aid lawmakers provided after feeling enormous
pressure from doctors and upset patients to prevent more doctors from
leaving the state.
Powered by ScribeFire.
$35.5 Million in Wrongful Death Case
August 1, 2007
The doctors may also face criminal charges for their part in causing the death of at least two of their patients (including the one subject to the wrongful death suit) and injuring others.
Oakland County physician Aeneas Guiney has been ordered to pay $35.3 million after a jury decided he was responsible for the death of a patient .
MRI Better in Detecting Breast Cancer
August 1, 2007
Screening MRI had a higher rate of breast cancer detection than either mammography or ultrasound screening in high-risk women, but it nearly quadrupled the biopsy rate, researchers here found.
The diagnostic yield was 3.5% with MRI, 1.2% with mammography, and 0.6% on ultrasound, reported Constance D. Lehman, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Washington, in the August issue of Radiology.
"Although the specificity of MRI was lower than that of mammography or clinical breast examination (89.8%, 95.0%, and 98.1%, respectively), the overall accuracy of MRI was significantly higher," wrote Dr. Lehman and colleagues.
In their multi-center study, investigators compared the three screening modalities in 171 asymptomatic women who were confirmed carriers of a BRCA1 and/or BRA2 mutation or had at least a 20% chance of carrying the mutation.
MRI Beats Mammography or Ultrasound at Detecting Breast Cancer
All It Took Was a Cup of Coffee
July 31, 2007
In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.
The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee – and asked for a hand with the cup.
That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.
Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth
Nike Settles Discrimination Suit
July 31, 2007
Nike Inc. has reached a $7.6-million settlement in a class-action race discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of 400 black employees of the company’s Chicago Niketown store, the company said Monday. The lawsuit, filed in 2003, claimed managers at the retail store used racial slurs to refer to black workers and customers. They also said the store segregated black employees into lower-paying jobs as stockroom workers and cashiers rather than giving them lucrative sales jobs. And they alleged managers made unfounded accusations of theft against black workers and directed store security to monitor black employees and customers because of their race. Nike has denied the allegations.
Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Nike settles discrimination suit over Chicago Niketown | Crain’s
Worker's Compensation
July 29, 2007
Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system of benefits paid by employers to workers who experience job-related injuries or diseases. The Commission operates the state court system for workers’ compensation cases. A case is first tried by an arbitrator, whose decision may be reviewed by a panel of three commissioners.
Tort Immunity
April 26, 2007
Lawsuits Against Va. Tech Face Hurdles
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Five years before the massacre at Virginia Tech, a deeply disturbed student went on a murderous rampage at the Appalachian School of Law, killing three and wounding three others.Some victims and family members sued the law school and eventually settled for $1 million. Similar lawsuits are virtually certain after the Virginia Tech shootings, but legal experts say it could be very difficult to win damages.
The gunman in the law school shooting in Grundy, Va. _ graduate student Peter Odighizuwa _ had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Plaintiffs claimed in their $23 million lawsuit that school officials ignored a pattern of threats and disruptive behavior that should have warned them Odighizuwa _ who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia _ was dangerous.
Like Odighizuwa, who is serving six life terms, the Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, had displayed aberrant behavior that some say should have been recognized as warning signs.
Along with the similarities in the two cases, however, there is one significant difference: While the Appalachian School of Law is a private institution, Virginia Tech is a state school and therefore enjoys a level of immunity.
How much immunity is a question that likely will be tested in court.
“When plaintiffs’ lawyers get a hold of this, people may be surprised by their creativity,” said Ashley Taylor, a former deputy attorney general who represented the state’s colleges.
The state, its institutions and employees are largely protected from civil lawsuits by “sovereign immunity” _ a doctrine rooted in a monarchical tradition that allowed grievances against the king only if he said it was OK.
“We do not expect perfection out of our government,” said David N. Anthony, chairman of the Virginia Bar Association’s civil litigation section. “Our government can make mistakes. If they do, we can’t recover from them unless it falls into a category where they say we can.”
Virginia’s government has waived sovereign immunity in a limited fashion through the Tort Claims Act, which permits damages of up to $100,000 for bodily injury caused by the state’s negligence.
Anthony said sovereign immunity will make it exceptionally difficult for anyone to successfully sue the state for more than that.
