More ways for lawyers to make money?
The flashpoint is a proposal that would allow family members of someone who has died to seek damages specifically for “grief, sorrow and mental anguish” “” in addition to other economic and noneconomic damages “” in any wrongful death lawsuit. The bill goes to the state Senate this week; it passed the House on Friday with nearly all Democrats in support and all Republicans in opposition.Trial attorneys say the changes to Illinois civil justice codes would provide compensation for what amounts to heartache. But the idea has angered businesses and in particular doctors and hospital administrators who say it’s just another way for lawyers to seek money.
The measure would cover all wrongful-death cases “” drunken driving crashes or on-the-job accidents, for example “” but it also would apply to medical malpractice, always a hot-button issue.
Related posts:
- Lawyers win again, patients lose
- A surgical resident on the hook for a $23 million malpractice award
- Grief and death
- Texas malpractice caps: Readers react
- Malpractice caps are likely to die in Illinois
- Op-ed: Injured patients deserve medical malpractice reform
- Will reforming the malpractice system be a deal breaker for health reform?
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How closely related will you have to be to the injured party to receive compensation for grief?
If it is going to apply to all of the other flavors of litigation cited then why not medical malpractice as well.
Kevin, if you watch your child get run over as a result of someone else’s negligence, do you not believe your medical bills as a result should be compensable?
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