A plaintiff’s lawyer loses a malpractice case involving stroke care. The pre-trial screening panel found for the defense, which was admissible in trial:
The panel’s findings aren’t binding, but lawyers can cite a unanimous finding as evidence at trial. In [this] case, the panel had found in favor of the doctors, defense lawyers told jurors.
Now that the defense won, the plaintiff attorney says they should be abolished:
“It’s a colossal pain in the neck, because you basically have to try the case twice, but the first time is sort of an abbreviated process.”
A word of wisdom. Sometimes unfortunate outcomes occur without fault from the physicians. They didn’t lose because of the pre-screening trial. The system worked exactly the way it should have.
