Access to care benefits from Missouri liability decision
With Missouri recently in the spotlight pending a decision from its Supreme Court, patients and physicians across the state now face a more certain future as the court upheld the constitutionality of reasonable limits on non-economic damages.
In a 5-1 decision, the court determined that the legislature had the authority to enact a law limiting non-economic damages to $400,000 for personal injury and $700,000 for catastrophic personal injury cases.
This decision follows years of back and forth between the courts and the legislature, as legislators altered laws struck down as unconstitutional in an effort to satisfy concerns expressed by the state’s highest judges.
The latest challenge was to a law passed in 2015. The decision benefits patients and physicians by ensuring the stability of liability laws that make the state a more attractive place to practice medicine.
To read more about Missouri’s Supreme Court decision and its impact on access to care, click here.
Liability concerns impacting emergency medicine
Often the face of front-line health care providers, emergency physicians find themselves treating patients at disaster sites, hospital emergency rooms, and urgent care clinics — and facing liability threats along the way.
In an opinion piece in Forbes, Sai Balasubramanian, MD, JD, combines his medical and legal backgrounds to share insight on the challenges faced by emergency providers, including the threat of medical liability.
The high-stakes nature of emergency medicine requires “mak[ing] quick decisions based on limited information in order to do what is best for the patient in that immediate moment,” Balasubramanian writes.
But ever-present is the threat of liability, pushing physicians to order a battery of tests and procedures and practice defensive medicine to ensure even the least likely of outcomes are explored.
“Emergency physicians, and physicians generally, are forced to straddle a thin line with this, as there is a perpetual fear that a missed diagnosis or failed treatment plan may result in a career-defining (and sometimes, career-ending) lawsuit,” comments Balasubramanian.
While the challenges of emergency medicine are well-known to those who enter the practice, “emergency physicians and healthcare professionals generally will continue to persist and fight for what’s most important: the ability to provide the best patient-care possible.”
To read more about the liability issues confronting emergency medical providers, click here.
Affidavit of merit under review in New Jersey
An affidavit of merit case that threatens to open new avenues of liability in New Jersey is under consideration by the state’s Supreme Court.
Enacted to require plaintiffs in liability cases to establish a threshold showing that their claim is meritorious at an early stage in the litigation, affidavits of merit have long been a part of liability laws, allowing the court to “weed out” meritless claims.
Now in New Jersey, the affidavit of merit is at risk. The basis for the case under review stems from a liability lawsuit against a hospital, defined as a “licensed person” under the affidavit of merit statute, for the vicarious liability of an employed radiology technician, who is not a “licensed person” under the same statute.
When the affidavit of merit did not accompany the lawsuit, it was promptly dismissed but then reinstated by an appellate court who deemed it unnecessary on the grounds that the underlying liability claim was against an individual not covered by the statute.
A legal review of the case reflected on the impact if the appellate court decision holds.
“The decision on appeal indicates that claims arising from the negligent actions of employees of health care facilities, whose professions are not delineated in the list of licensed professionals, may not be subject to the Affidavit of Merit statute, even if the defendant/employer is a ‘licensed professional.’”
To read more about how the state Supreme Court’s interpretation of the affidavit of merit could affect the identification of meritless lawsuits in the future, click here.