Pros and cons.
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You actually dont even need health courts, you just need to get rid of hired gun experts.
Here’s the way it currently works:
Lawyer has a cadre of hired gun experts who he pays many times above market value for clinical services to testify in court. Of course, what happens is that the “expert” says whatever the lawyer wants him to say. If a doctor makes $50 an hour doing clinical medicine, he can make up to $500 and hour doing “expert work” which of course is an ENORMOUS incentive to lie and mislead a jury.
The way it SHOULD work:
There is a panel of experts who all get paid a flat fee per case. None of this crap with getting paid $500 per hour. None of this crap about being on permanent retainer with a particular law firm. This panel has no ties to either defense or plaintiff lawyers. This panel gets paid the same wages that they would make doing clinical medicine.
For any particular case, you draw 3 experts from random out of this large expert panel to render judgment on whether malpractice occurred. The plaintiff and defense are forbidden to bring their own hired guns into the courtroom.
The rest of the process stays the same. The jury/judge hear the testimony of the 3 experts and make their decision based on neutral expert testimony, not biased/tainted “hired guns”
YOu dont need a complete overhaul of the court/jury system, you just need an overhaul of the “expert” system. This will eliminate John Edwards from going thru 40 experts before he finds one who will say what he wants him to say in court.
So who are these physicians who are going to agree to be on this expert panel at these reduced rates?
“So who are these physicians who are going to agree to be on this expert panel at these reduced rates?”
You dont have to pay them reduced rates, all you have to do is make sure they get paid the same regardless of whatever finding they make.
Thats NOT how the current system works. In the current system, “experts” get paid more depending on what they say in court. You arent going to be held on retainer by the local law firm if you dont say what they want you to say.
That bullshit practice has to end.
Leave the jury system in place.
“Thats NOT how the current system works. In the current system, “experts” get paid more depending on what they say in court. You arent going to be held on retainer by the local law firm if you dont say what they want you to say.”
No expert will last very long under cross if they are on retainer. Now, a consulting expert might be on retainer, but not a testifying one. Your best experts have testified for both sides during their careers.
I’ve hired experts, for economic damages, that the other side didn’t even depose because they knew that he was straightforward because they’d used him themselves.
You forget that these people are cross examined and have to be able to hold up.
However, to make “health courts”, ie. backdoor damage caps, work, you’re going to have to spend some money to get this panel of experts to leave private practice, even temporarily. What physicians in private practice are going to want to do that?
At the back of the ATLA journal there are about 500 ads from doctors advertising their services as “experts” so no I dont think it will be a problem to recruit doctors for this expert panel.
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