Simply being named in a lawsuit without merit gives a physician significant headache:
I spent about 20 hours on the lawsuit before it was dismissed – and another 10 hours afterward explaining it to prospective employers and malpractice carriers. Psychologically, the suit took a greater toll, especially when I felt that my academic career as a clinical gastroenterologist might be in jeopardy.All this wasted time and emotional distress was unnecessary.
Naming physicians in suits may seem trivial to some, but it does lead to significant emotional impact for the physician.
Related posts:
- A doctor falsely accused of sodomy during a colonoscopy
- Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis’ malpractice lawsuit
- The pain of a malpractice lawsuit
- Shotgun yields a jackpot
- Patient e-mail: Potential lawsuit
- Losing the will to treat patients
- "Nobody wants to be accused to killing off grandma or grandpa"
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{ 23 comments }
Physicians, if I am to take away something from anecdotes and linked stories on this blog, could really spare themselves a lot of unecessary alarm and anxiety, with a more realistic understanding of legal procedure. Physicians must of course face legal challenges with realistic respect of the facts alleged and dangers to reputation, but might, if anecdotes on this blog are representative.
However, it seems much of the burden is self-imposed from a lack of familiarity, and some basic legal education could help keep these things in better perspective.
If your wish was granted 5:35 would it not be unreasonable to request that an attorney had at least an inkling of what medical malpractice might before filing a lawsuit and wasting hours to months of a doctors time and money???
These BS lawsuits are akin to me sending you a subpeona to report without consent to the doctors office for placement of an NG tube, colonoscopy without sedation, anal wink and bulbocavernosus reflex testing for teaching purposes. This is all in the name of “discovery”. Oh my bad. We didn’t find anything. At least you don’t have cancer
… then you know exactly how defendants feel when you go in and make sh*t up for the raft of PI, WC and toxic tort cases. If you want the moral highground and not the lowground of hypocrisy, do not involve yourself in the legal system as a profiteer lest you find yourself as a defendant.
Criminallopath, I’ve seen your posts before, and you generally say nutty things…but I did not understand what you were trying to say in your last post at all.
In general an attorney has a very good idea about when an injury or bad outcome has occurred, and has grasp of general ideas related to what constitutes malpractice…it may take time and investigation to rule it out. It doesn’t pay to waste time or energy on cases where malpractice can quickly be ruled out. Attorneys who focus their practive on malpractice are well-versed on the subtlties you seem to think they are missing…
If it is a problem that doctors feel more anxiety and alarm than they have to or is reasonable, even. Perhaps that is one area where physicians could help themselves. It can only help to know more about law, not less.
And there is a difference between a bs lawsuit, and a legit lawsuit where a physician is named simply because he was involved in the patients care or member of another doctor’s practice. It would be malpractice for the lawyer to fail to name ANY potentially liable party.
It’s hard not to think of Flea. He was so unable to comprehend the papers served on him in his infamous case realted to an ill child who died when his diabetes was missed, that Flea thought he was being accused of manslaughter. His fear and hyper-reaction led, by his own account, to bad judgment that made things go worse for him.
Flea was never a good listener, even with his peers on this blog, so maybe that’s just a personal failing.
But perhaps knowing boilerplate language of a malpractice lawsuit would have spared him from the intense emotional reaction that did not serve him.
If I am swept up in a shotgun lawsuit with no basis for any claim of liability, and take 20-40 hours of my professional life and aggravation and expense to get dropped, I don’t see how I would “really spare (myself) a lot of unecessary alarm and anxiety, with a more realistic understanding of legal procedure.”
If I have a realistic understanding of the process of house fires, that is not going to spare me the discomfort of my home burning, a realistic understanding of how armed robbers work is not going to make getting a gun pointed in my face any less traumatic–even if he leaves without money.
I think that is a realistic understanding of legal procedure–that they are out to empty pockets whereever they find them–that creates the anxiety that innocence is no guarantee of absolution, and that absolution does not reverse the punishment already administered due to being the victim of the system in the first place.
Uneccessary alarm and anxiety do result from unfamiliarity with rudiments of law and procedure related to malpractice suits.
If anything, it would help a physician understand where there is an out for him, and either assist in his own defense, get him dismissed from a case where need be, or quickly dispatch a case that doesn’t merit additional fact finding, but is meritless on its face.
Since the article focuses on the emotions and stresses from a kind of panic, consider that knowlege is power and can reduce some of that panice. It does not pay to get overwraught about language that is business, not personal.
The assumptions helf about lawyers being all about emptying pockets is not helpful to you either. Most are as interested in advocating for an injured person as you are, don’t wish to waste time and money and effort in a fruitless cause, and maybe it’s fair to note there are few physicians who work for free. Consider the lawyer is paid to advocate and to help people assert their rights to compensation when harmed.
One problem I see doctors repeatedly have is the inability to distinguish what is a legit claim to pursue or not. A lot of mixing up and garbage ideas of what the law is. I think it would be helpful to know more. It’s pretty clear ignorance is far from bliss, if the article kevin linked and the anecdotes told here are to be believed.
Why is it that if a lawyers names someone in a suit who had nothing to do with it, the attorney argues that it is no big deal and the phsycians should know more about the law? If a physician makes a mistake, it is called malpractice!
Why are attorneys not held to the same standards as physicians?
Not about you:
Let me try it again. In order for one to claim a moral highground on an issue, one can not be participating in exactly the same practice that they are decrying. One sees this all of the time with religious hypocrites (as an example). The same paradigm applies to professions as a whole. Allopathic medical providers have no moral highground to decry the rapacious nature of the civil litigation system as long as they are profiteering from it, typically with the same attorneys, on the other end. For every junk medical malpractice case there are most likely hundreds of junk PI, WC and toxic tort lawsuits. Each and every one of the latter three requires a physician to come in (usually on a lien with the first of the three) and make the pontification that “to a reasonable degree of clinical certainty the accident caused [insert diagnosis du jour here].” This has given us thousands upon thousands of junk 2 MPH impact caused disc herniations, brain injury, rotator cuff tear, knee ligament(s) or menisci tear, etc. If this is not bad enough, we see whole fields of garbage diagnoses such as railway spine, post-traumatic fibromyalgia, etc. that are generated as litigation diagnoses. I would have no problems with giving providers special protections from junk lawsuits but the cost to them would be giving protections to all other potential defendants from their junk science post hoc ergo propter hoc clinical causation nonsense.
Interesting you brought flea. A man who was publically outed by an attorney out to score points. The
sad thing is he never had his day in court and settled dueto lawyer games. Then you pontificate about “uncessary anxiety”. Do you actualy read the crap you write before hitting the button? Jeez.
Another thing
re:”and maybe it’s fair to note there are few physicians who work for free.”
Actually if you knew anything about the medical profession reimbursement, you would understand most docs work “for free” on a daily basis. We just don’t know it at the time.
Flea settled his court case due to his own big mouth. He cost himself his day in court. It had nothing to do with Lawyer games.
In the ER I make dozens of very critical decisions every day while constantly being interrupted with incomplete information. If I make a mistake someone is ready to call me on it.
Mr. malpractice lawyer can sit in his leather chair and analyze the chart for hours to months on end. They could even hire someone to help them look through the rectrospectoscope since obviously he has no freaking clue how to read it, or what it means. And yet……he still can’t even get a freaking clue so files action against any doctor who has his name listed in the chart.
I know about the legal system. I know these BS suits are going to be dropped but they still cost money and they still cost time.
The system is screwed up and it is indefensible
Throckmorton, it would be legal malpractice NOT to name a potentially liable party. It isnt “mistake”, if there is a reasonable basis for a connection to the case. It’s like you considering both a UTI an PID at the same time. When you get enough info torule out the UTI, you drop it.
Where is your clear idea of what an atorney’s duties might be?
5:01 anonymous – About flea. What I say about him, is based on what HE says about himself and his situation.
I don’t understand the resistance to good advice here. The linked article is about stresses linked to being sued, presumably when one ought ot be dropped from a suit. Knowing how the law gets there is only going to help you.
Oh yes anon JD flea had committed the “indefensible act” of actually commenting on the idiocy and games that are the present malpractice court system. That by an in itself should guarantee that he should not be able to defend himself in a court of law. right? Nice to know you ignore others rights when they don’t agree with your goals. Is hypocrisy your middle name? Trust me I have delt with your own risk management brethran who tell me “don’t talk about the case even to family”. For my own conscience and for the sake of the families involved I have always ignored that “idiocy” of lawyer advice. You guys make me sick (and the vast majority of society if you haven’t noticed).
Knee jerking, not about you, et al:
I agree with your comments about physician ignorance of legal procedure and about how knowledge can help etc. But you are wrong about one thing. It is personal. It is just business to you, but to the defendant as much as the plaintiff, it is very personal and that personalization of being sued is not remotely irrational or due to ignorance. My personal assets are at risk with every suit. My home is personal. I have a perhaps irrational attatchment to being protected from the elements in a safe neighborhood. It was purchased with years of my labor–my time and the property generated by it is personal as well.
Sure docs say some irrational things when they get excited about malpractice issues–often onesided as hell, but it is silly for attorneys to tell them that “it is just business” and expect them to buy that.
It is like when I go deer hunting. For me it isn’t even business–it is just recreation. For the deer it is very very personal.
BTW, it is sort of reasonable for docs to be ingorant of the legal process. That isn’t their profession, and the profession that they have chosen is very demanding of their available study time.
Would you rather your doctor spent his time becoming an expert on malpractice litigation, or trying to avoid commiting malpractice?
Certainly knowledge of the legal system is desirable for those who may unwillingly participate in it. However, for physicians, the issue is not ignorance of the legal system. Rather, it is distrust of the legal system.
The classic med-mal nightmare of a physician is a CP baby. It is the sentiment, within the medical community, that these cases are largely without merit. However, the “reasonable doubt”, as presented by an emotional appeal to a lay jury, often overcomes the preponderance of medical evidence.
Naturally, there are other representative cases, and each specialty has its own. We do not trust the justice system to render justice, as we’ve seen injustice rendered far too often.
“and take 20-40 hours of my professional life and aggravation and expense to get dropped,”
What are you spending 20-40 hours on?
” It is the sentiment, within the medical community, that these cases are largely without merit. However, the “reasonable doubt”, as presented by an emotional appeal to a lay jury, often overcomes the preponderance of medical evidence.”
You just illustrated the very first commenters point. “Reasonable doubt” has nothing to do with a med mal trial. Nor is there any evidence that “emotional appeals” often trick the lay jury in those cases.
I have evidence that emotional appeals affect malpractice suits.
It was channeled to me by John Edwards.
Think About It: The clear ideas of the lawyer duty to adverse third parties come from the clearly written, absolute Rules of Conduct, of Evidence, and of Civil Procedure. They must have slipped your mind.
They forbid the shotgun, frivolous, meritless naming of innocent parties. The filing of a weak claim is grossly negligent lawyer malpractice. It shows no care was taken whatsoever. It is also negligence per se by its violation of several statutes.
Only your corrupt, biased pro-lawyer rent seeking pals on the bench protect the land pirate from the accountability in these statutes, and extends the self-dealt litigation privilege to the land pirates financing his election campaign.
I suggest another Rule. No lawyer may sit on a bench.
“I suggest another Rule. No lawyer may sit on a bench”
I will second that rule.
Shotgun suits are an exceedingly unethical device. Those who engage in obvious false accusations, such as in this case, must be disbarred in any meaningful tort reform.
The motivation for shotgun suits is indirectly alluded to in this article, in the section where the innocent physician refuses to give free expert opinion sought for in his depostion.
In any civilized nation with an honest legal system, there would be a Loser Pays for all costs of the litigation.
Loser Pays would bring an instant end to this obvious corruption.
I spent 30-40 hours in my last frivolous lawsuit just sitting in a psychiatrist’s office trying to understand why it upset me so much as well as 30-40 hours sitting in my living room with a lethal dose of pills on my coffee table trying to decide if I should commit suicide. The funny thing was, I never even saw the patient. But they can make it so, so painful. I’m glad I got out of this profession.
A psychotherapy bill is an element of a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
If the statute of limitations has not passed, I urge the doctor to bring the bills to a lawyer to see if there is any recourse against all parties, the plaintiff, the plaintiff lawyer. Although the claim will be thrown out, a claim should be made against the judge, his administrative supervisor and his employer, to change unjust case law. To end the self dealt immunity of the little tyrant on the bench. Also file ethics charges against all parties, one at a time, one state at a time, where licensed, once a month, each.
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