Maryland Medical Malpractice Attorney Blog

In the GOP response to President Obama's state of the union address, Republicans went with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. I think he was a good choice, a blue collar Republican with a strong appeal to conservative Democrats. We all remember Bobby Jindal's creepy speech after President Obama join session address last year (and this is coming for someone who has some admiration for Jindal).

Governor McDonnell made four points that got my attention: (1) Republicans will fight health care reform, (2) there should be limits on jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, (3) we are spending too much, and (4) insurance companies should be able sell insurance coverage across state lines.

He was 2 for 4 with me. I do think our deficit/debt is completely out of control. I also think it might help control costs if we could expand health insurance coverage beyond state lines. The lack of quality competition in Maryland with Care First must increase costs and I have to think there are economies of scale to bigger. I'd like to hear more informed debate about some blind alleys I'm not considering but this issue should be fully aired.

Actually, what I wrote above is misleading. McDonnell's actual speech did not focus on malpractice damage caps, although he does support them. His focus was on frivolous lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Turns out, I'm against those too. So he is 3-4 with me on the text of his speech.

While I'm babbling on about the Obama's speech, which I thought was good, Justice Alito's response to the President disagreeing with the Supreme Court was just incredibly interesting as was James Carville's incredulous response on CNN to the suggestion that the President should not second guess the Supreme Court while they are in the room.

Medical malpractice lawyers often contend that malpractice tort reform would actually increase malpractice insurance rates. Coming from trial lawyers, this claim has been readily discounted by many, including me because it would seem to defy fundamental principles of economics. But when this same argument gets raised by the American Academy of Actuaries and is published in Modern Physician, it definitely lends more credence to the argument.

The legal system in general does not fall into step with general principles of economics. Nor should it. Very often, lawmakers try to tip events and end up tipping other points that send the car down the opposite path of the one that was intended.

This is not the reason why malpractice reform is a bad idea. It is a bad idea for the 1,000 reasons I have set forth on this blog and elsewhere. But if you are on the fence on this issue, this is the type of stuff you should keep in mind.

• Obama and Tort Reform
• More on Obama and Tort Reform
• Malpractice Rates (seems to be falling everywhere)

A man in Tampa Bay has filed a lawsuit against a hospital that told him it would charge him more than $1 million to pull their adverse incident reports on his back surgeon. One goal of the Plaintiff: finding out just how much it would actually cost the doctor to do the search.

In 2010, people are getting used to the information age. They no longer feel comfortable being left in the dark on issues that are important to them, particularly information a patient would want to know. Do hospitals try to put a big price tag on information to deter patients from obtaining information on their doctors? I'm sure some do. But 10 years from now, covering up this kind of information claiming the search is too time consuming is going to be a dead bang loser. It may even be already.

Lockshin v. Semsker was decided yesterday. Plaintiffs lost on every conceivable level. You can read the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog summary here.

Heather Pensyl writes a good summary in the University of Baltimore Law Forum of McQuitty v. Spangler a cerebral palsy case in Baltimore County that I summarized last year discussing informed consent in Maryland.