Recent News
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s State of the State address
[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, members of the Legislature, members of the Board of Public Works, justices of the Supreme Court of Appeals, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and my fellow West Virginians. Forty years...
California’s Proposition 46 and the Uncertain Future of Medical Malpractice Liability Reform
On November 4, 2014, Californians voted against Proposition 46, an unprecedented statewide ballot initiative that would have, among other things, raised the $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages to $1.1 million and indexed it to the rate of inflation in future years....
When Is It About Money? Why Is It About Time?
Crisis, it is said, means both danger and opportunity. In medical liability reform, however, greater opportunity may lie in noncrisis. In this issue of JAMA, Mello and colleagues offer data suggesting that no crisis of the conventional sort currently exists in the...
Malpractice Insurance Premiums Nudge Down Again
For the seventh straight year, malpractice insurance premiums have decreased for three bellwether specialties, and even for sticker-shocked obstetrician-gynecologists on Long Island in New York, according to an annual premium survey released this week by Medical...
Doctors order unnecessary tests without even realizing it
Physicians order unnecessary tests and procedures to inoculate themselves from legal liability more than they realize, according to a new survey of physicians at several hospitals in one Massachusetts health system. Nearly a third of the orders that the surveyed...
Poorly Crafted State Proposition 46 Puts Doctors on Defense
The lawyers who put together and funded Proposition 46 might have been too clever for their own good. The main motivation for the measure is inescapably clear: to raise the ceiling on “noneconomic damages” in medical malpractice lawsuits — in plain language, “pain and...
Proposition 46 is No Cure-All
Physicians should not get drunk or stoned, especially before operating on patients. They ought to make sure their patients need prescriptions for ailments, not to feed addictions. And policymakers should consider updating the 1975 law that capped damages in medical...
Vote No on Proposition 46
Supporters of Proposition 46 on the Nov. 4 ballot must think the California voter is really stupid. Proposition 46 is a measure put on the ballot by trial lawyers who want to raise the limit on noneconomic damages in malpractice cases. But the proponents must have...
Numbers are down, but Phila. is still a haven for medical malpractice suits
After all the hand-wringing and anguish over out-of- state firms flocking to file lawsuits in Philadelphia - the law firms you see advertising on late-night television - is Philadelphia still the notorious plaintiffs' paradise of common lore? It all depends on your...
Malpractice Caps in Flux in Florida
Less than 4 months after the Florida Supreme Court struck down the state’s wrongful death non-economic damages cap, the fate of the state’s personal injury medical malpractice award limit may also be in jeopardy. The state’s highest court heard oral arguments in June...