Greedy Trial Lawyer
Special Medical Malpractice Courts Not A Part Of Search For Justice
Category: Gaming The System
Why do trial lawyers bristle at the idea of special Medical Malpractice Courts that would theoretically assure greater, supposedly impartial, expertise in medical care issues? Why should ordinary juries and ordinary judges continue performing their roles in lawsuits alleging breaches of the medical standard of care?
I cannot provide a better answer than the one contained in this letter to a Pennsylvania newspaper.
Jonathan B. Tocks, M.D., solicited "a statement from the trial bar in Pennsylvania on proposals to remove the med/mal issue to specialized courts" (Letters, May 28). I offer the following in my capacity as last year's president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.Some years ago I tried a medical malpractice case in Chester County arising out of the death of a 12-year-old girl who was sent home from a well-endowed local hospital after falling off her bike and exhibiting the classic signs of a fractured skull, without first a CT scan of her head.
Six days later she was found dead in bed. An autopsy revealed a fracture of the base of the skull.
The defense retained the services of a prominent neurosurgeon -- let's call him "Dr. X" -- who filed a report in which he gave his opinion that the little girl must have suffered a blow to the skull after she had been discharged from the hospital, because never in his many years of practice had he ever heard of a person dying of a fractured skull as long as six days after the initial injury.
Fortunately, I had done a search of the medical literature and found an article published by the self-same Dr. X in a prominent medical journal 16 years before, in which Dr. X documented case studies of the seven patients who experienced delayed-onset brain bleeds days after -- in one case weeks after -- an initial blow to the skull caused a fracture. Indeed, in his article, Dr. X explained the mechanics of the human anatomy that caused such a delayed onset.
The specialized courts proposed by Dr. Tocks would be made up of doctors like Dr. X. Can we honestly say that such courts would improve the search for justice?
My answer is no. Special courts are intended to improve the profitability of medical malpractice insurance carriers. Any improvement in the search for justice would be totally accidental.
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