Comments on: Why shotgun lawsuits work

By: Philip

Philip — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:52:00 +0000

A Naperville dentist called a flagrant foul on Chicago Bulls’ mascot Benny the Bull on Monday, suing the team over a high-five gone awry.Dr. Don Kalant Sr. alleged he was sitting near courtside…

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-benny-bull-suedapr22,1,2429632.story

What is wrong with this picture, indeed!

By: Supremacy Claus

Supremacy Claus — Thu, 18 May 2006 01:40:00 +0000

Anonymous: Some advice. Medical malpractice has no future. The number of cases being filed is rapidly falling. Look for another line of work.

I go to meetings with lawyers and doctors. Top lawyer leaders sound scared. They beg reforms be allowed to take effect, and to percolate down to current cases. They point out, most lawyers are not even trial lawyers.They have nothing to do with the wrongfulness of your specialty. They do not deserve what is going to be done.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 17 May 2006 10:43:00 +0000

You missed the point of my earlier post. The defense lawyers don’t CARE who is truly responsible, they just try to put blame on anyone except their client and hope the jury believes it to the greatest extent possible. And lets be honest, sometimes it works, so it would be legal malpractice not to name as a defendant a doctor that another doctor is claiming is negligent. What would I tell my client if the jury came back and assessed a significant percentage of the negligence on a doctor I didn’t sue, even though three other doctors testified he was negligent. That’s what the insurance companies pay defense attorneys to do. All the insurance companies care about is paying as little money as possible, so the lawyers they hire try place the blame on anyone else, no matter who or why. BTW, after I named everybody, the new defendant doctors agreed with my first conclusions that the original defendant doctors were negligent, of course, and then the case settled and the new defendants didn’t pay any money. The only reason the case settled is because I sued the new defendants, who knew how full of baloney the first defendants were. I don’t mean to be direspectful, but I don’t think you understand the dynamics of a malpractice case any better than I know how to treat patients. I would also bet that we agree on a lot more than you might think. The real bad guys are the malpractice insurance carriers, who force both their insured doctors and injured plaintiffs into this kind of conduct.
I think its sad when I go to a settlement conference with several defendant doctors and I tell them they are getting sued not because I think they comitted malpractice, but because their co-defendants are testifying that they comitted malpractice.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2006 23:49:00 +0000

“That’s the reason shotgun lawsuits are filed, because the defendant doctors always place all the blame on any doctor who isn’t named.”

Sounds like you didn’t really have any idea who was responsible, after all. Interestingly, I understand that support personnel are far less likely to be included in these bundled suits. You’d think they’d be prime targets, since they saw as much as the doctors and would be bankrupted by the defense costs alone. I mean, the only real difference is the amount of money you can collect…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:13:00 +0000

I remember the first medical malpractice case I filed. I looked at the charts, spoke privately to several physicians about what happened, and then filed suit against only those I felt were responsible. As soon as the defendant doctors were served, they (more accurately their lawyers) all did the same thing. They blamed all the malpractice on the doctors that weren’t named as defendants in the lawsuit. So then I had to amend the complaint and name everybody in the room. I had to do that, because a jury may have put a percentage of the blame on one of the doctors that was left out of the suit. That’s the reason shotgun lawsuits are filed, because the defendant doctors always place all the blame on any doctor who isn’t named. Their attorneys know that all defendants must be in a single lawsuit, and a plaintiff can’t collect against someone ho isn’t a defendant. Don’t blame the plaintiff’s attorneys for a defense attorney tactic.

By: Supremacy Claus

Supremacy Claus — Tue, 16 May 2006 13:28:00 +0000

I understood the intention of this lawyer tactic.

On the other side of the coin, defendant doctor crossclaims against all the other physicians prevent the settling of a nuisance frivolous lawsuit without getting permission of the doctor making the crossclaim. Let the settling doctor pay all the other doctors for their expenses and trouble, if he wants to pay the plaintiff.

If a doctor tries to betray his colleagues by settling for some low amount, he still has to answer to the other defendant making a crossclaim against him. Without the crossclaim, he can weasel out of the lawsuit. The offer of a settlement will be taken as an admission of culpability, by anyone with common sense, including jurors, no matter what the settlement contract says. Formal legal crossclaims prevent disloyalty.

Furthermore, plaintiff offer to not report the settling doctor to the National Practitioner Data Bank are unlawful, and should be voided in any settlement contract. The crossclaiming doctor can see to that.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 09 May 2006 06:32:00 +0000

"There are instances, however, in which an injury is not discovered for months or years after it occurs. In these cases, under medical malpractice law, the statute of limitations is applied when the injury is discovered or when the injury should have been discovered."

"In addition, in some states the statute of limitations for a medical malpractice suit may be delayed for an injured child until the child reaches the age of majority"

Oops guess you need to go back to law school eh CJDlite.

"Like I said, you clearly indicate that you don't care about the truth or the victim,"

Please don't lecture me when you clearly don't know what you are talking about.

By: Anirban

Anirban — Tue, 09 May 2006 06:20:00 +0000

It's still just two years.

how long will it take to develop your case ?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 09 May 2006 04:52:00 +0000

"You know damn well you can file to extend the time frame to when the injury is or should have been discovered. "

Where did you get this? You cannot "extend" the time frame. It is what it is - the date of the action, or in certain limited circumstances, a time after the age of majority or the injury should have been discovered. It's still just two years.

And given the restrictiveness some courts put on the "should have been discovered" clause, you don't want to rely too heavily on that.

Like I said, you clearly indicate that you don't care about the truth or the victim, when you are probably in the best position to serve both.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 09 May 2006 04:26:00 +0000

“How about giving a longer statute of limitations so a case has more time to develop?”

You know damn well you can file to extend the time frame to when the injury is or should have been discovered. If a child is involved, the statute of limitations is usually until the age of 18 (which would be 18 years for birth injuries ). What do you want “indefinite time frames”? Your dishonesty is disgusting. So I should help “find” the truth in a joke suit in which everyone is dropped because a JD can’t do his job in the first place. I think not.