Law Suits and Popular Ignorance

[TexTushHog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWtI8SN1EpA

Truer words were never spoken. If I had a dollar for every time I've had these sorts of conversation, I could quit.

[Mazomaniac]

OMG . . . I almost laughed up my spleen at that.

Now I remember why I only do appeals. Thank you and the rest of the trial bar for screening 98% of the loonies out for me.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[TexTushHog]

"Why does that matter? I'm a good Christian. I just want what I'm owed!"

[Bebe Le Strange]

Attorney: "I will ask this again, are you smoking crack"? She replies "I have heard this works as I watch Bill Oreilly"... lmao

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWtI8SN1EpA

Truer words were never spoken. If I had a dollar for every time I've had these sorts of conversation, I could quit.

too funny :-)

[charlestudor2005]

@TTH

I have this case against Starbucks. They've been overcharging me for my coffee, and have vastly misrepresented it as the best coffee in the US. They've violated the DTPA, and created a tortious breach of contract. I've been purchasing daily for the last 5 years, and they violated the DTPA in each purchase. I'm entitled to the statutory cap along with the treble damages available. Since I live in the RGV, we can file down here and get a large P's verdict.

[TexTushHog]

CT, I'll take the case -- but only on a hourly basis. As the guy in the video says, "I'm in this business to make a living!"

[Camille]

Hahahaha...oh god that made me laugh.

Lawyer: Have you ever heard of tort reform?
Woman: Yes of course. I voted for Jim D and Nicky H to institute some much needed tort reform to keep people from filing frivolous law suits.
Lawyer: Oh Jesus..I have seen single cell Amoebas with a better understanding of politics than you.....
If you have to "sheet" in a colostomy bag bag for the rest of your life that is a non-economic damage you ignoramous.

Roflmao

Now I know why my atty is good to me.
I ask him how he's going to do something, he explains it and I let him get on with it. If he has to put up with that sort of shit on a daily basis I'm not surprised I get taken out for lunch on my birthday..hahahaha.

[woodyboyd]

TTH, there is a lot wrong with this video, but let me start by saying thank you on the link to the bar for a complaint.

I am actually going to sue the medical expert and lawyer for libeling me about the standard of care in a small claims court. I don't care if all I get is one penny from both of them. I just want it on their record such that they have to report to the medical board and bar that they lied in this case. After I win, then I will turn them in. What is so funny is that exhibit A in my suit is the medical expert's own words in his deposition.

Charles Tudor's explanation about standard of care and a doctor amputating the wrong arm was just pure bullshit. Cutting off the wrong arm on a patient is a clear violation of the standard of care. It was so absurd that I think he must be a lawyer. Doctors don't condone this type of behavior. If someone did a botched surgery like this, I would be first in line to testify against them.

As far as the other example he gave, a doctor perforating a patient's colon during a colonoscopy, that is typically not medical malpractice as it is a known risk of the procedure. Some exceptions to that rule are if the doctor was drunk, the nurse assisting says the doctor made a mistake, or if the doctor had an abnormally high amount of perforations. For most people, the benefit of the procedure outweighs the risks, but if you don't want to take the risks, don't do the procedure.

One of the other myths that Charles brought up was that I "did something wrong". In fact, I have never been sued for doing something wrong, and I have never seen anyone else sued for that. This is more bullshit lawyers try to propagate. EVERY case that I personally have seen has involved a doctor not doing more. If every doctor did everything that lawyers said that we should have, costs would triple with no tangible benefit. What happens is doctors are caught in a vice. Insurers deny everything while lawyers demand everything.

As for the video and the powerful insurance companies, my response was please. Once more, every case that I have been involved in with one exception has been such crap that myself and insurers faced a choice. Spend two weeks in court, lose personal income, pay $50,000 to $100,000 to fight or settle for $50,000 or less. In every meritless case, the insurer has said, "You know, the jury could feel sorry for the plaintiff." This amounts to extortion, and I have to wonder what percent of cases wind up with these types of extortion settlements. If a lawyer sues for $250,000 and takes $25,000, then the case in all likelihood was bullshit. Insurers don't care about right and wrong; all they care about is the bottom line.

Doctors don't go after other doctors who testify against them unless the charges are ridiculous. What really happens is there are a very few doctors who are such whores that they will testify to whatever the plaintiff's lawyer wants him to, and they are well known by defense and plaintiff attorneys alike. Giving a blood thinner to a bleeding patient or penicillin to someone who is allergic to it are absolute contraindications with regards to the standard of care, yet these "medical experts" have testified that the treating doctors should have done just that. These lawyers can get these doctors to say anything if the price is right. In my experience, this video is dead wrong with regards to expert witnesses. These experts can and do lie through their teeth without getting punished.

As far as lawyers being all that stands between patients and chaos, that too is crap. One hospital that I worked at had a horrible reputation, and I saw first hand horrendous acts of poor care. I talked to two lawyers about what I could do legally to fix the messes I was seeing, and they both said the same thing, leave that hospital. What's that say about the legal system and how much lawyers truly care about quality medical care?

And if getting bad doctors is so important, then you have to wonder why lawyers are so mum on the subject of lawyers getting sued for legal malpractice when they botch a case against a bad doctor. There was only one case that I have observed or been involved in where the lawyer was completely professional, and that was because the lawyer had both a MD and JD. Outside of that, which health care providers who are sued and which are not seems to be an entirely random event. In my current case, four of the twelve heath care providers who saw this patient before he died were sued. Why us four? God only knows. The other eight doctors could have been sued just as easily.

If the best malpractice attorneys really cared about quality, they would sue the pants off those attorneys of lesser quality when they lose, but they NEVER do. One lawyer in a rare honest moment told me "it's really hard to sue another lawyer", but it is easy to sue a doctor? Let me be clear. If good malpractice attorneys truly were so important to medical care, then the crummy ones should be weeded out, but I see no evidence that attorneys have any interest in doing that. How many malpractice attorneys are sued compared to doctors? I would bet that there has not been one malpractice attorney sued in the state of Texas in the last five years.

Because of Project Freedom we are seeing horrible abuses in the criminal legal system and what gross violations of duty some attorneys have committed. The same is true with medical malpractice.

Harvard did a review of cases and found medical malpractice in case after case, however when there truly was malpractice, lawsuits were rarely filed. OTOH, in cases that were filed, there was rarely a gross violation with regards to the standard of care. Once more, lawsuits did not get bad doctors. Who got sued was a completely random event.

A Medicare executive estimated the cost of defensive medicine was 9% of the total health care budget. That is $45 billion per year, yet for all that money and assurances that without these lawsuits, care would suffer, other countries have better care with less cost. What I have seen is that lawyers could care less if they sue the doctors who really screw up, all they care about is how much they get paid. If that is typically the case, and all the evidence points to that being the way it is, then you have to ask why bother even having a malpractice system at all? Other countries seem to be getting along just fine without one.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by woodyboyd

TTH, there is a lot wrong with this video,

Ya know Woody, as much as I try to be compassionate toward others, right now you're probably:

1) sitting around in your nice big house, with
2) a nice new car in the garage, while
3) posting messages to the "Diamonds and Tuxedos" section of an escort review board, using
4) your fancy new laptop computer.

And what are you posting about?

You're posting a bitch rant about how if you get sued your insurance carrier will roll over and pay the bill for you.

If that's the worst situation an MD get himself into then sign my sorry ass up!

When waitresses, dishwashers, and farm workers start bitching to me about the threat they face from frivolous law suits I'll start to perk up my ears. In the mean time how about we try to man up and accept the risks and the rewards of our chosen profession, eh?

Everybody - myself included - has got issues with their job. Just ask some of the ladies around here how sorry they feel for doctors who have it sooooo tough.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[charlestudor2005]

There is so much wrong with these statements, I just don't know where to begin, so I'll just comment as you wrote it.

Originally Posted by woodyboyd

TTH, there is a lot wrong with this video, but let me start by saying thank you on the link to the bar for a complaint.

I am actually going to sue the medical expert and lawyer for libeling me about the standard of care in a small claims court. Good luck with this. Generally speaking, court testimony (including the expert opinion) is protected speech. Otherwise, no one would "testify" to the truth for fear of what you are going to try and do...sue the person who testifies. I suspect the case will be dismissed and you'll be sanctioned for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. But that's appropriate, don't you think? I don't care if all I get is one penny from both of them. I just want it on their record such that they have to report to the medical board and bar that they lied in this case. After I win, then I will turn them in. What is so funny is that exhibit A in my suit is the medical expert's own words in his deposition.

Charles Tudor's explanation about standard of care and a doctor amputating the wrong arm was just pure bullshit. Cutting off the wrong arm on a patient is a clear violation of the standard of care. It was so absurd that I think he must be a lawyer. Doctors don't condone this type of behavior. Not true. If you were the doc accused of this, your defense attorney would trot out the fact that you followed the standard of care, and you would hope like hell that he would win. If someone did a botched surgery like this, I would be first in line to testify against them. Then, I'm sure you'll be making yourself available to the Plaintiffs' bar to testify against other docs...Not!!

As far as the other example he gave, a doctor perforating a patient's colon during a colonoscopy, that is typically not medical malpractice as it is a known risk of the procedure. So, any procedure with known risk is free of malpractice? That's crazy. Every medical release I've ever signed says I understand the risks (before emergency surgery, I allege this is duress because if you don't sign, they won't operate), and lays out the risks, all of which include disfigurement, death, and every other problem you can possibly imagine. Some exceptions to that rule are if the doctor was drunk, the nurse assisting says the doctor made a mistake, or if the doctor had an abnormally high amount of perforations. Good luck with any of these. If you think lawyers protect their own, the medical profession beats lawyers by several light years. Let's see, the nurse says the doc makes a mistake, then loses her job and is banned from the profession. Sure, that's a motive to report the doc. Same for a drunk doc. And, as you pointed out, perforations are just a risk...at least for you. Probably not for the patient. For most people, the benefit of the procedure outweighs the risks, but if you don't want to take the risks, don't do the procedure.

One of the other myths that Charles brought up was that I "did something wrong". In fact, I have never been sued for doing something wrong, So, you said you were being sued, and I can only assume that it is for doing something wrong since you said the P's have experts and all who have filed expert opinions against you. Doesn't you being sued alone belie this allegation of yours? and I have never seen anyone else sued for that. This is more bullshit lawyers try to propagate. EVERY case that I personally have seen has involved a doctor not doing more. If every doctor did everything that lawyers said that we should have, costs would triple with no tangible benefit. What happens is doctors are caught in a vice. Insurers deny everything while lawyers demand everything.

As for the video and the powerful insurance companies, my response was please. Once more, every case that I have been involved in with one exception has been such crap that myself and insurers faced a choice. Spend two weeks in court, lose personal income, pay $50,000 to $100,000 to fight or settle for $50,000 or less. In every meritless case, the insurer has said, "You know, the jury could feel sorry for the plaintiff." This amounts to extortion, and I have to wonder what percent of cases wind up with these types of extortion settlements. If a lawyer sues for $250,000 and takes $25,000, then the case in all likelihood was bullshit. Insurers don't care about right and wrong; all they care about is the bottom line. Oh, please, get a grip on reality. Lawyers routinely sue for much more than they expect to get. Rule of thumb is that you take what you think you might reasonably get, and multiply x3 (or even file with no number) so you aren't limiting the amount you can get. So, a lawsuit for $250,000 is probably really a suit for between $80,000-$100,000. That's what the attorney thinks s/he'll get at trial. Settling for $25,000 is not bullshit, it's reality. It benefits both the P and the D. It ensures the P of a recovery, less than what the P wanted, but in trials there's always the chance of a loss. It also ensures the D (really the insurance company, don't delude yourself into thinking the D actually pays more than a small deductible) limits damages so much less than what was on the books. You are right about one thing: all the insurance company cares about is the bottom line. And when they talk to you about settling, they are just being polite. They can settle without your agreement. That's what the insurance policy is all about.

Doctors don't go after other doctors who testify against them unless the charges are ridiculous. I call bullshit on this. What really happens is there are a very few doctors who are such whores that they will testify to whatever the plaintiff's lawyer wants him to, and they are well known by defense and plaintiff attorneys alike. And you think there aren't defense docs that do the same? Gimme a break. It's just that the defense has more $$$ and is able to afford higher priced whore docs. Giving a blood thinner to a bleeding patient or penicillin to someone who is allergic to it are absolute contraindications with regards to the standard of care, yet these "medical experts" have testified that the treating doctors should have done just that. These lawyers can get these doctors to say anything if the price is right. In my experience, this video is dead wrong with regards to expert witnesses. These experts can and do lie through their teeth without getting punished. Bullshit here too!! And your experience in expert opinions is probably very limited. It's the people (attorneys and docs) who deal with these on a daily basis that know the reality of dueling expert opinions. Yes, the law requires the P to have an expert opinion b4 filing a med mal lawsuit. It was put there by the docs and defense bar that wanted to limit Ps access to the courts. The theory was that if you had an expert's opinion then you had a prima facie case. Now, you come along and yell, basically, "fraud." Well, first you want to throw up a barrier to getting justice, then when P's leap that barrier, you complain about that, too. Shit, the Ps are just playing by your rules. I guess, in the end, you don't think there is such a thing as compensable med mal. In your opinion, no doc commits a wrong for which the P should be compensated.

As far as lawyers being all that stands between patients and chaos, that too is crap. One hospital that I worked at had a horrible reputation, and I saw first hand horrendous acts of poor care. I talked to two lawyers about what I could do legally to fix the messes I was seeing, and they both said the same thing, leave that hospital. What's that say about the legal system and how much lawyers truly care about quality medical care? OK, here you are suggesting that lawyers take on a whole hospital w/o a client. Or, go soliciting clients to close a hospital? You trying to bait attys into a soliciting charge? Get real.

And if getting bad doctors is so important, then you have to wonder why lawyers are so mum on the subject of lawyers getting sued for legal malpractice when they botch a case against a bad doctor. There was only one case that I have observed or been involved in where the lawyer was completely professional, and that was because the lawyer had both a MD and JD. I guess the fact that he was also an MD didn't color your opinion at all. Not. Outside of that, which health care providers who are sued and which are not seems to be an entirely random event. That's because we don't control where the clients come from or which medical providers they have seen. It would probably be different if the ethics rules allowed attorneys the right to solicit business; but it doesn't (unlike docs). In my current case, four of the twelve heath care providers who saw this patient before he died were sued. Why us four? God only knows. The other eight doctors could have been sued just as easily. Probably a matter of the expert's opinion (which, if you remember, was required by docs before filing a suit).

If the best malpractice attorneys really cared about quality, they would sue the pants off those attorneys of lesser quality when they lose, but they NEVER do. Just as docs can't ensure a cure or outcome, neither can attys. The mere fact a case was lost does not give rise to legal malpractice. Too many variables, and it is merely speculative whether or not a different result could have been attained. Can a suit be maintained? Yes. But the standard of gross negligence is so high that it would be hard to get there. And the remedy. It is not imposing the judgment against the attorney. It is a retrial. Which goes against the finality of judgments rule. Would it be fair to the D to make him/her defend another trial that s/he already won once? One lawyer in a rare honest moment told me "it's really hard to sue another lawyer", but it is easy to sue a doctor? You're talking 2 different procedures here: with the atty, it's about a retrial which has the legal problems listed above. With the doc, you're looking at conduct that hasn't been sealed with a final judgment. Let me be clear. If good malpractice attorneys truly were so important to medical care, then the crummy ones should be weeded out, but I see no evidence that attorneys have any interest in doing that. How many malpractice attorneys are sued compared to doctors? I would bet that there has not been one malpractice attorney sued in the state of Texas in the last five years. Don't know for sure, but as I said before, you can check it out the discipline at the State Bar of Texas website. Plus the court's keep track of types of cases filed, so you should be able to determine the number of legal malpractice cases. I can assure you, that number will NOT be -0-. Since you're making this unknowing assertion again, I'll assume you haven't availed yourself of this knowledge. Plus, you're mixing apples and oranges. So your argument is really beside the point.

Because of Project Freedom we are seeing horrible abuses in the criminal legal system and what gross violations of duty some attorneys have committed. The same is true with medical malpractice. Even the med mal defense bar, which is ruthlessly in denial when it comes to confessing judgment for liability when liability is clear. If you want fair (which you don't) they should be doing at the very least, that.

Harvard did a review of cases and found medical malpractice in case after case, however when there truly was malpractice, lawsuits were rarely filed. OTOH, in cases that were filed, there was rarely a gross violation with regards to the standard of care. Once more, lawsuits did not get bad doctors. Who got sued was a completely random event. Again, this proves lawyers don't pick the clients. They have to wait for the clients to come to the door. I'm sure the P's bar would be happy to be able to have true med mal cases referred by some system, but that's not the way it works.

A Medicare executive estimated the cost of defensive medicine was 9% of the total health care budget. That is $45 billion per year, yet for all that money and assurances that without these lawsuits, care would suffer, other countries have better care with less cost. What I have seen is that lawyers could care less if they sue the doctors who really screw up, all they care about is how much they get paid. If that is typically the case, and all the evidence points to that being the way it is, then you have to ask why bother even having a malpractice system at all? Other countries seem to be getting along just fine without one. OK, now what have you been smoking? First of all, comparing the US to other countries is kind of a useless exercise. There are too many variables. For instance, if you compare us to France (which is one of those countries with no lawsuits) you also have to include their healthcare system to get financial accuracy since that was part of the "no lawsuits" deal. They have universal healthcare. The docs work for the state for a flat salary, but are able to make extra income through moonlighting. I'm sure that's a deal you want. Most docs in this country want to hold onto the millions they make without being responsible for their actions. That's not the way the world works. So, yeah. I'm more than willing to go to a no med mal system just so long as you are. BTW, it's not like the docs make nothing. I think the standard is around $80K. So, when you start proposing alternative systems, present the full picture. Only half the picture is intellectually fraudulent.

[Randy4Candy]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

When waitresses, dishwashers, and farm workers start bitching to me about the threat they face from frivolous law suits I'll start to perk up my ears. In the mean time how about we try to man up and accept the risks and the rewards of our chosen profession, eh?

Fuckin'-A

How's about some brie with the whine.....

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

When waitresses, dishwashers, and farm workers start bitching to me about the threat they face from frivolous law suits I'll start to perk up my ears.

Lawsuit abuse drives up the costs of goods and services for everyone (and, yes, that even includes waitresses, dishwashers, and farm workers).

Here's some info:

http://www.instituteforlegalreform.o.../item/LAI.html

Yes, that's an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, so no doubt its credibilty will be attacked by those on the left. But is anyone outside the plaintiffs' bar (and its apologists) going to try to claim with a straight face that it's a less credible source than the American Association for Justice?

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Yes, that's an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, so no doubt its credibilty will be attacked by those on the left. But is anyone outside the plaintiffs' bar (and its apologists) going to try to claim with a straight face that it's a less credible source than the American Association for Justice?

You might ask the members of the Defense Bar who have had their incomes slashed and law firms decimated since tort reform. I'm sure they think tort reform was much more than an effort to control frivolous lawsuits. It was an effort (mostly successful) to stop all Plaintiff's lawsuits. Cutting off access to the courts is un-American. When you're afraid to let a jury decide the merits of a case, you've so abused a democratic system that it's become disfigured.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Lawsuit abuse drives up the costs of goods and services for everyone (and, yes, that even includes waitresses, dishwashers, and farm workers).

Nobody is claiming that there aren't frivolous suits or that those suits don't lead to economic costs.

What we're saying is that the "problem" - like many such "problems" - has been blown grossly out of proportion by those wishing to politicize it for personal or political gain.

As the video pointed out, lawyers are in business. They have to take risks in order to prosecute a contingency case. If, as big businesses love to claim, they constantly made poor business decisions by taking huge risks on cases with no merit they would soon be out of business.

What the right loves to forget is that, if they're right about frivolous lawsuits, the market forces they so love to rely on would put the bad lawyers out of business long before regulation would.

It's just like the great right-wing scare a while back over our "loose" justice system letting murders out on the streets left and right. What changed between then and now? Not much. The rules of evidence are same today as they were back then. Appeal rates haven't changed. Conviction rates haven't changed. Everything's the same, but the political argument got old so the Republicans ditched it and moved on to civil suits instead of criminal cases.

Like all things political, there's just enough truth in what both sides say in the argument to make them both "correct". The real story, however, lies in the middle.

Yes, there's abuse in the legal system just as there is in any other business. No, the sea will not boil and the heavens collapse if we don't put a damage cap on every civil case. The industry is self regulating via traditional market forces. Maybe you elephants ought to practice what you preach and keep your paws out of the market.

Cheers,
Mazo.