Maryland Medical Malpractice Attorney Blog

Medical malpractice is largely a zero sum game. If it helps the defendant's lawyer, it helps the plaintiff's lawyer. We all pretend from time to time this is not so. But it is almost invariably true.

The question of whether to name doctors in a hospital malpractice case is one of those situations where it is best for everyone to keep the doctors out of the lawsuit. (Sure, maybe the public censure of a doctor through a civil lawsuit has value. But, ultimately, our job is to do right by our clients by maximizing the value of their malpractice case.) Plaintiffs' lawyers prefer to name a hospital which is far less sympathetic than an individual doctor. It gives juries the opportunity to award fair damages without the pain of directly blaming a specific doctor (even in cases where obviously it was a single doctor's fault). The doctor's lawyer - even if the lawyer also represents the hospital - gets that a doctor does not want to have her name in the lawsuit.

Everyone's happy. One problem: the general release of a doctor operates as a matter of law to release defendant from liability. And you don't want to use the procedural leverage you have with defendant doctor in terms of reading deposition testimony at trial, etc.

This sample joint stipulation solves these concerns.

• Several patients of a New Mexico cardiac surgeon are suing him, alleging that he faked diagnoses and then implanted unnecessary pacemakers. Unnecessary cardiac surgery is becoming the new big thing. Maryland's claim to fame: the unraveling may have started with us.
• "A decision to let a nearly $1.7 million medical malpractice verdict stand against a local hospital came down to five words from the hospital’s lawyer at the end of trial: 'Okay. Alright. Thank you.'" This was a 3-2 decision. On jury polling. Seriously? Has a civil case ever flipped on jury polling? Goodness, this is deep in the form over substance textbook.
• The Pop Tort weighs in on federal medical malpractice legislation.
• A D.C. medical malpractice lawyer writes about his fight to get his client the money she won in court.
• You're not supposed to raid your state's med-mal compensation fund to help balance the budget. Then again, why do these guys have so much extra money lying around in their malpractice fund?

Under the default statute of limitations for medical malpractice cases in Maryland, malpractice victims have three years to file a lawsuit from the time of the malpractice or wrongful death. The discovery rule says, however, that subject to a five year limit, the clock only begins when you know or have reason to know of the connection between the malpractice and the injuries suffered.

This is one of those "little bit of information can kill you" type situations. Because, before I went to law school, I would interpret know or have reason to know as when the victim(s) would know or have reason to know. But that really is not the law. It is know or have reason to know if you have done a full investigation. The distinction is critical, as the plaintiff in this new Illinois malpractice case found out the hard way.

The Plaintiff in Dixon v. Roseland Community Hospital sued a hospital and a boatload of doctors for the wrongful death of her mother, an active 69 year-old woman who was an artist with no significant health history. For reasons that are not clear in the opinion, the woman had been admitted to the hospital because she was not feeling well. She was given an IV and felt pain in her veins. She was moved to another hospital but died. Her lawsuit alleged that she had gangrene from her hand to her wrist and died from cardiopulmonary failure that was likely secondary to septic shock.

Continue reading " New Opinion on Discovery Rule and Statute of Limitations in Malpractice " »

• Mark Midei is no longer licensed to practice medicine in Maryland.
• A new study shows that doctors follow evidence-based guidelines only slightly more than half the time.
• Can you bill your doctor for the three hours you spent in the waiting room?
• Can that surgery wait until July is over?
• As many as 15,000 patients a year get unnecessary angioplasty, a new study says.
• An upstate New York jury has awarded a brain-injured woman and her husband $34 million in their suit against a hospital, doctor, and nurse for causing her to go into a coma by infusing her too quickly with saline solution.

• Maryland Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog writes about whether you are more likely to be a victim of medical malpractice in the doctor's office or at the hospital.

You have to wade through a lot of trash to get to stories/blog posts that are not pure marketing. If you have a good link you want to share, email me at ronmiller@millerandzois.com

• Medical Justice has a blog post about the wait at the doctor's office. This Avvo Blog post calls Medical Justice a "widely reviled company." I don't like Medical Justice's premise as I have articulated here. But widely reviled? Good golly! Let's use our indoor voices.
• The Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog offers up some news that surprises optimists like me: the rate of error in electronic prescriptions is no less than the rate of error for prescriptions from the doctor that appear to be written by a five year-old. My hope: we are just working out the kinks. But it is not a good tea leaf for thinking we are going to get a safety bang for our buck with these prescriptions. (Richards & Richards also has a post on this.)
• Decades after it became clear that overworked, fatigued medical residents tend to make mistakes (imagine that!), the medical community still hasn't really addressed the problem.
• A list of "serious reportable events" (i.e. Very Big Screw-ups) in hospitals is being expanded to include other types of medical facilities, such as nursing homes and doctors' offices.
• D.C. Circuit decision on HIV misdiagnosis could expand doctors' liability in emotional distress cases. Via Courthouse News.
• Reduce actual medical malpractice, not malpractice suits. Also, Alan Crede writes on the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog, "Cutting down on payouts in medical malpractice cases won't bring down our health care costs. They'll only guarantee that the taxpayer foots the bill for the injuries, rather than the medical malpractice insurer."
• Despite what a phony doctor told a multiple sclerosis sufferer, eating watermelon in a hot tub will do no good.
• Nursing home abuse caught on tape. Big Brother has his uses.

• A jury in Maine awarded her a 10-year-old disabled girl and her family $3 million in a medical malpractice case involving a midwife who assisted in the girl's delivery (lack of oxygen during birth). Four years ago, this same midwife got hit with a $6.7 million verdict. I have nothing against midwifes. No, wait, actually I do. You are going to deliver a baby. Get a board certified OG/GYN. Seriously.
• West Virginia's malpractice caps continue to create controversy.
• North Carolina malpractice victims narrowly dodged a similar fate. Governor Beverly Perdue vetoed a bill on Friday, pushed by the Republican majority at the North Carolina Legislature, that would have changed the rules governing medical malpractice cases by capping certain monetary awards for negligence victims.
• The Maryland Malpractice Attorney Blog (no relation, not even cousins) writes a post about cancer misdiagnosis in Maryland