A surgical resident on the hook for a $23 million malpractice award

The case was decided in Wisconsin before caps were in place:

Angela Beauchaine, a resident in training at the hospital, was the only doctor sued in connection with the girl’s death who was not covered by state malpractice award limits that shield fully licensed doctors. Tort reforms a decade ago capped awards, making doctors liable for far less in damages than Beauchaine faced.

Comments

Anonymous
So what were the damages to the victim?
Anonymous
“According to the lawsuit, the girl needed immediate surgery for a twisted bowel, but the surgery did not occur until 15 hours later. Not treating the twisted bowel resulted in a cutting off of circulation, causing the organ to wither. That caused several other problems, the lawsuit says, and the girl underwent 89 surgeries, including three organ transplants, over the next two years before she succumbed to an infection.”
I’m struggling to see why its a good thing this girl can’t collect the full amount the jury awarded.
Mike
Anon 5:47… thats becasue you’ve never been a resident.
Anonymous
Why would me being a resident change anything. If you get run down tonight by a drunk driver and get a $10 million verdict to pay for your injuries, would I not be able to understand that’s a bad thing because I wasn’t a drunk driver?
Anonymous
She wasn’t worth $23 million. The original verdict was $17.4 million, which has accrued interest as the insurer fought to keep from paying it.
It appears her medical bills were at least $3 million. So the question is, what’s the value of not only losing your life, but suffering through 80 surgeries on your bladder at what should be the happiest years of your life?
A jury found it to be around $14 million, assuming there were no punitive damages. Since you’ve not seen all the details, who are you to disagree with them? Who are you to set a number without seeing those details?
I promise you your parents would have paid that much to keep you from suffering that way when you were that girl’s age.
Anonymous
No, my parents would not have, because they didn’t have it. In fact I am paying today, and may eventually die of the consequences of decisions that my parents made, doing what they thought was best, in trying to deal with poverty.
Life has a value and it is, in the real world, much lower than what juries often place on it when moved by compassion in a particular case. In the real daily world of commerce, the value people regularly place on their very own lives in an effort to make a living is remarkably low. Many fathers take jobs that put them at substantial risk of being killed or maimed, just to bring an extra 5000 or 10000 home to the family. Whether in oil and gas extraction or coal mining, people risked their lives to make a little extra money providing us with the electricity to do this. Eat and salt-water fish lately? One of the most dangerous jobs in America is commercial fishing.
That 23 million malpractice awards are unpayable by residents doesn’t in any way reduce that girls suffering or need for compensation for expensive treatment. The fact that it is unpayable as practical matter can not be ignored.
I truely believe that if every case of malpractice were actually compensated at the values set by juries in the few real cases that get to trial, the system would collapse as the cost would be completely unsustainable by what people can pay for medical care.
Perhaps we need to compensate economic injury only, and seek futher justice through more rigorous quality control and getting repeat “offenders” out of medicine.
Anonymous
I see that the article says the insurance company will have to pay it. Do they have unlimited coverage when they buy a policy in Wisconsin?
I can only buy a limited amount of insurance, 1 mil is the max that I can find coverage for in my state in my practice. Any judgement over that takes my stuff, when my stuff is gone, they get nothing. If I ever did this much damage (2.5 mil in care expenses alone), the victim could get a 14 mil award but they would never get that. Instead, I would be broke, they wouldn’t even have their medical bills paid, but their lawyer would be the real winner.
Anonymous
And maybe the defendants don’t have it, but defendants aren’t really eager to share their financial condition, so the jury can only decide what it was worth. And I promise you your parents thought it was worth that and would do anything they could to try and get it.
“That 23 million malpractice awards are unpayable by residents doesn’t in any way reduce that girls suffering or need for compensation for expensive treatment. The fact that it is unpayable as practical matter can not be ignored.”
How do you know it is unpayable? Have you considered that perhaps the reason the insurer has fought it is because it is in fact payable? If there was only a million in coverage, why not just tender your limits and go?
You’re absolutely right it doesn’t reduce her suffering. Of course, that doesn’t mean her suffering should have no value or the negligent party should not have to pay for the harm they caused. Are you suggesting a sliding scale of damages based on a defendant’s net worth?
“I truely believe that if . . “
On what basis? What’s the sum total of actual jury awards?
“Perhaps we need to compensate economic injury only,”
So effectively, you’ve devalued the lives of those not working down to simply their medical bills. What incentive do they have to recover those lost bills?
Anonymous
“they wouldn’t even have their medical bills paid, but their lawyer would be the real winner.”
Actually, the health insurer would be the real winner. They had already collected premiums for this care and yet would be reimbursed.
The lawyer is getting paid to do his job, which he would have done well. Do you think your insurer was offering that much BEFORE the lawyer got involved?
Anonymous
But don’t you understand that the resident has about zero control over when the surgery gets done? Residents have to present cases to the attending and work with the OR scheduler to get the case on. The hospital controls the availability of rooms to do surgery, and if a case is delayed, it’s the attending’s job to try to move it forward. (But the attending doesn’t control it either). Why is the resident getting nailed for all the money she will ever make (don’t think that they won’t garnish her salary?) when she couldn’t control the outcome? It’s like suing you for your entire future earnings because your plane was late. That’s what’s so crazy about this case.
Anonymous
The resident may have only been assessed 1% of the fault. Without knowing more about the case than this article gives us, we have no idea how much she is on the hook for or what the particular facts were. Reaching a conclusion on this is impossible.
Anonymous
My point is that in cases like this, the neglitient party can not pay for the harm that they have done in most cases. Perhaps in this case, the real defendant is actually the employer, which as a medical school has deep pockets and reinsurrance and so it can get paid.
In most cases, it would matter one bit whether I or a jury think this is worth 14 million and whether I or a jury thinks that should be paid or not–it wouldn’t be there.
I have a mil of insurance and about 1/2 mil of net worth. If I were to be found responsible for that sort of injury and striped of every asset down to my briefs, the attorny would get 600,000, the medical creditors would grab the remaining 900,000. The patient would get nothing and would still be medically indigent and bankrupt by 1.6 mil. I would just go live with my oldest child, babysit the grandkids, and fish every day
Anonymous
Note that while the attorney would then be getting 600,000 for his good work. If I did good work in the first place, I would get a couple thousand at the most. Intersting the difference between how the judicial system values the work, both good and bad, vs the market place.
Anonymous
“My point is that in cases like this, the neglitient party can not pay for the harm that they have done in most cases.”
Which is why they buy insurance. I get your point, but what’s the relevance to the discussion?
Anonymous
“If I did good work in the first place, I would get a couple thousand at the most. Intersting the difference between how the judicial system values the work, both good and bad, vs the market place.”
The judicial system doesn’t make that valuation, the market does. The client can negotiate a lesser fee if he/she can find someone to do it. Alternatively, the client can hire an attorney to do it on an hourly basis.
You chose to value your services for a few thousand, and you got paid no matter how good or bad a job you did. The clients valued the attorney’s services differently. The judicial system had nothing to do with their negotiation.
Mike
Anon 7:43.. because residents are not attendings. They are in training. And if you were one, you’d know that essentially a resient should NEVER be faulted for malpractice. Because everything they do is signed off on by attendings. I repeat: a resident should NEVER be at fault. If they were on their own doing things, then the administration is at fault, NOT THE RESIDENT!!!
So that is why it is completely bogus.
Anonymous
A resident should NEVER be faulted for malpractice? If she does something on her own, her actions are not her own? Nothing she does can ever fall below the standard of care?
You must be joking.
lindar
My daughter was a friend of Sarah Hegarty at DSHA High School. This terrible death sticks in my mind as it was the same time my sister Nancy died of breast cancer. You doctors need to remember and reflect upon, that mistakes, bad
decisions, etc. result in death. Sarah Hegarty is dead – no future -no neat profession – no family – she is dead.
Perhaps there would be fewer deaths, false claims, and fewer bad decisions if doctors LOST their livelihoods too, in addition to paying fines.
Anonymous
“Perhaps there would be fewer deaths, false claims, and fewer bad decisions if doctors LOST their livelihoods too, in addition to paying fines.”
Your anger and disdain are misguided and offensive.
I lost my father at age 12 and an uncle to what might be deemed to be “malpractice” nowadays. I grew up poor and motivated not to live under a bridge. I became the first physician in known family history after putting myself through school. I have very strong feelings about what is and is not malpractice and that over which I have control. I realize I am but a few grains of dust-in-the-wind as judged by the sands of time, not a diamond in the sky. Had I been born almost anywhere else in the world, or 100 years ago, this is the lens through which life would be seen. Never in the history of mankind have the masses of people thought themselves so invaluable and self-important. Much of this misperception is an unfortunate side-effect of the success physicians and scientists have had preventing and treating disease. We are largely the victims of our own success. Thanks a lot.
Anonymous
In what way are you “victims”, at least any more than anyone else?
Mike
Anon 9:29… unless the actions were blatently criminal, then no. An attending is responisble. Until you understand that basic fact of training in the United States, you just have no freaking idea about it.

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A surgical resident on the hook for a $23 million malpractice award

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