Free Republic

Pollard Rogers figures that for years, the Cantey & Hanger law firm in Fort Worth has had one of the largest medical malpractice defense practices in North Texas. And it probably still does. But it's nowhere near as big as it was before the state changed the tort system three years ago, said Rogers, the firm's managing partner. The Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform Act of 2003 put caps on noneconomic (pain and suffering) damages that could be awarded and raised the standard of proof necessary to win a malpractice case against an emergency healthcare provider. There is no cap...

The father of a disabled woman who died last year is entitled to half her estate even though he had little contact with her during her life, a state judge ruled yesterday. Ruben Martinez of Staten Island will receive about $400,000 of the $1.1 million remaining in a trust established for the care of his daughter, Jennifer Rogiers, who was born with severe disabilities caused by spinal cord injury suffered during her breech birth in 1983. The girl's mother, Rosa Rogiers of Weehawken, also received $400,000 and an additional $300,000 to compensate her for the years of care she provided...

Stamford, Conn. -- In what attorneys say is the first case of its kind since Connecticut legalized civil unions, a lesbian couple filed a medical malpractice lawsuit Tuesday claiming botched cancer treatments damaged their love life. Margaret Mueller and Charlotte Stacey are accusing two doctors of treating Mueller for ovarian cancer when she actually had cancer of the appendix. They contend Mueller underwent years of grueling chemotherapy while the cancer spread. Married couples in personal injury cases commonly sue over damage to their love lives, or what is known as loss of consortium. Joshua Koskoff, an attorney for the lesbian...

About 40 percent of the medical malpractice cases filed in the United States are groundless, according to a Harvard analysis of the hotly debated issue that pits trial lawyers against doctors, with lawmakers in the middle. Many of the lawsuits analyzed contained no evidence that a medical error was committed or that the patient suffered any injury, the researchers reported. The vast majority of those dubious cases were dismissed with no payout to the patient. However, groundless lawsuits still accounted for 15 percent of the money paid out in settlements or verdicts. The study's lead researcher, David Studdert of the...

First, lets describe the health care problems we have in Pennsylvania. Perhaps the most alarming fact is that Pennsylvania is losing 1,500 doctors each year due to the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance premiums. One local family doctor, who had never been sued, related how his premium went from $75,000 per year to $150,000 per year in one jump. His premium would be $12,000 if his practice were in Virginia. The next issue is the closure of hospitals. In the 166th District, our only hospital - Mercy Haverford - closed its doors in 2002, and has not reopened.

Here's what I believe to be true regarding some of the most important issues facing America today, and what most politicians apparently don't. IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT I'm going to be as blunt as I can be with respect to the illegal alien problem in this country, while refraining from using the profane terms that routinely leap to my mind every time I think about our government's unrelenting failure to address this issue in any responsible way. To get right to the point, any person in this country who doesn't support (A) doing whatever is necessary to stop illegals from entering...

SENATE, No. 2910 STATE OF NEW JERSEY 211th LEGISLATURE INTRODUCED DECEMBER 5, 2005 Sponsored by: Senator THOMAS H. KEAN, JR. District 21 (Essex, Morris, Somerset and Union) SYNOPSIS Establishes a Medical Malpractice Court. CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT As introduced. AN ACT establishing a Medical Malpractice Court and supplementing Title 2B of the New Jersey Statutes. BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: 1. The Legislature of the State of New Jersey finds and declares that: a. The resolution of disputes in cases involving medical malpractice issues should be improved to assure litigants...

Nov. 10, 2005 — In recent years many doctors and politicians have complained that frivolous malpractice lawsuits and disproportionate jury awards are a problem in need of reform. But when "Primetime" did some investigating, it turned out that at least some of the people in favor of reform — even some of its loudest proponents — have themselves benefited from the current laws. The Senator's Wife Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., says that the No. 1 health care crisis in his state is medical lawsuit abuse and in the past he's called for a $250,000 cap on non-economic damage awards or...

The Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi will reduce its medical liability insurance rates by 5 percent for 2006, state Insurance Commissioner George Dale said Monday. The reduction was approved late last month by MACM's board of directors. The company provides liability insurance for about 70 percent of the state's physicians. "I am pleased that MACM is in a financial position to take these steps. This is further proof that recent reforms continue to show that Mississippi can maintain a fair and equitable marketplace for those companies who write medical malpractice insurance,'' Dale said. The Mississippi Legislature in 2004, responding to...

A DEVASTATED mum yesterday told how blundering doctors removed her healthy breast after wrongly diagnosing cancer. Marjory Patterson, 52, was shattered when she was told - over the telephone - that she had a rare and particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. On the advice of doctors, she agreed to the mastectomy they said she needed to save her life. But three weeks after the op they told her they had been looking at another patient's tissue sample and made a mistake. Now, almost two years later, they have finally offered her compensation - of only £44,000. The Trust's solicitor...

BELLEVILLE -- Dr. Donald I. Serot, one of the metro-east's busiest and most celebrated orthopedic surgeons, will officially hang up his scalpel Aug. 31. Serot, 58, made the decision to retire less than two weeks ago, catching colleagues at Memorial Hospital, as well as hundreds of patients, by surprise. The driving factor, Serot said, was his realization he needed to spend more time with his family, especially his wife Geri, who is suffering from a "debilitating" illness. "My wife has some significant health problems. She cannot drive anymore," said Serot, who lives in suburban St. Louis. "I love my job,...

Just before Tatiana Behrmann moved to Bryn Mawr in June, her Florida doctor diagnosed her with gestational diabetes and told her to find another obstetrician here quickly. More than a month later, Behrmann, 29, was still searching. Due in September, she called doctor after doctor but few could see her before the end of the summer. Those who did turned her away for malpractice reasons because she was high-risk. "It was crazy, I even went to Planned Parenthood, thinking that if anyone would see me, they would, but they don't do prenatal care," said Behrmann. She finally found a high-risk...

The First Coast's 2006 state Senate primary between Jim King and Randall Terry is 15 months away, but fast becoming a bellwether race. At the very least, there is increasing national interest in how such a conservative core of the state defines conservatism, how powerful the religious side of the party continues to be and how big of a tent has been built by the GOP. Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is among the national figures diving into the debate. "This is precisely the type of race I'm interested in, because it's a...

Harvard Medical School's major teaching hospitals are considering adopting a sweeping disclosure policy that would establish detailed procedures for physicians to openly acknowledge medical errors and other bad results to their patients, and provide for training in apologizing. A group of physicians, patients, and executives from the hospitals, led by Dr. Lucian Leape, a national specialist on patient safety, began drafting the policy last year. In recent months, the group circulated a 50-page first draft among hospital leaders, who responded favorably to its broad goals but have suggested numerous revisions, which the group is now implementing. If Harvard's largest teaching...

Republican lawmakers are promising fast action to reverse the effects of a state Supreme Court ruling that overturned the state's caps on malpractice awards for non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. "This is another example of an activist court overstepping its authority," Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, said in a statement following the court's ruling on Thursday. "Fixing this ruling will be a top priority for Assembly Republicans." The court determined that the Legislature's rationale for putting an upper limit on non-economic damages was too broad and speculative to accept, and ruled the law violated the Wisconsin Constitution's equal...

ALBANY — Private jets. Elite hotel suites in tourist locales. Generous bar tabs. Cuban cigars. These were among the perks enjoyed by board members and executives of Phoebe Putney Health System and their business associates, according to travel documents and receipts obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The perks came courtesy of a private malpractice insurance company that was set up in the Cayman Islands by Phoebe Putney, an Albany-based nonprofit organization, to save the hospital system money on malpractice insurance. But the insurer also financed expensive trips to London and the Bahamas. In its effort to establish the insurer, Phoebe...

More than 9 out of 10 doctors surveyed admit that they practice some form of "defensive medicine” – ordering unnecessary tests or jettisoning potentially troublesome patients to head off malpractice lawsuits. The survey of 824 Pennsylvania physicians in six high-risk specialty practices, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found: Almost 60 percent said they often ordered more diagnostic tests than necessary. 52 percent referred patients to other specialists even when the referral was unnecessary. About 42 percent said concerns about malpractice lawsuits had forced them to restrict some practices – eliminating procedures prone to complications, such...

More than 90 percent of the Pennsylvania doctors surveyed on the impact of rising malpractice insurance premiums profess to engage in "defensive medicine" -- a catch-all term that includes everything from ordering unnecessary tests to passing off complicated patients. The findings of the May 2003 survey of 824 physicians, all of whom practiced in specialties at high risk of litigation, could help explain why health care costs keep rising. The findings are being published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association as part of a broader effort by the Pew Charitable Trusts to settle on some agreed-upon facts...

It is the law in Louisiana that you have up to three years from an alleged medical malpractice in which to file a lawsuit for damages and expenses. After three years, you don't have a claim. But what if something were left in your body after a surgery and you didn't know about it until long after three years had passed? As it turns out, current Louisiana law dictates that you are out of luck. John Randazzo is a very lucky man who's had some very bad luck. In 1993, John underwent abdominal surgery at Earl K. Long hospital. It...

SPRINGFIELD -- Black lawmakers lashed out Thursday against a deal struck earlier this week that would limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases, and warned Gov. Blagojevich not to count on their political support if he goes along with it. "Sooner or later, the black community is going to rise, and they're going to have to respond to us," said Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago). "I hope the governor thinks about that before signing this legislation. We've got an election next year, so the Black Caucus can be effective in that regard." A House committee approved the deal Thursday, and the...

Surgeon Goes From 'Brilliant' to Banned By WILLIAM McCALL/Associated Press Writer Fri May 20, 2005 As a young surgeon in upstate New York, Jayant Patel was a rising star, called "brilliant" by the doctors who trained him. But documents obtained by The Associated Press show a darker side — a long record of botched operations, lawsuits and allegations of negligence and incompetence that have trailed him from New York to Oregon to Australia, where the media have given him the sobriquet "Dr. Death." As details have emerged, the Indian-born doctor has taken on a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde image, raising questions...

BOSTON (AP) - The family of the late paleontologist and evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould sued two Boston hospitals and three doctors Friday, alleging the famed author would still be alive if they had properly diagnosed his cancer four years ago. The doctors all failed to recognize a 1-centimeter lesion on a chest X-ray taken of the Harvard professor in February 2001, according to Alex MacDonald, the lawyer for Gould's survivors. Thirteen months later, when another chest X-ray was taken, the lesion had grown to 3 centimeters and the cancer had spread to Gould's brain, lungs, liver and spleen, MacDonald...

SPRINGFIELD - Two separate bills, both with caps on pain and suffering, moved slowly through the House and Senate on Thursday as Illinois lawmakers continue to heatedly debate the contentious issue of medical malpractice legislation. The House bill calls for a limit of $250,000 on non-economic damage awards against a physician and a $500,000 limit on awards against hospitals. The Senate bill sets caps at $500,000 for physicians and $1 million on hospitals. State Sen. Dave Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, has said throughout the current legislative session that legislators must approve "meaningful" medical malpractice legislation. He said the House version of the...

SPRINGFIELD -- Even as trial lawyers and unions began furiously lobbying lawmakers to oppose a measure that would cap non-economic damages in doctor malpractice cases at $250,000 for physicians and $500,000 for hospitals, a House committee advanced it Wednesday. But after lawmakers screamed at each other during a debate that lasted for hours in the full House, they ultimately rejected a plan to raise those numbers to $1 million for doctors and $2 million for hospitals. As Democrats pledged to pass some sort of bill capping malpractice awards, doctors pledged to work to strip some of the stricter insurance regulations...

I'd been practicing in my small Midwestern farming town for about 10 years when I began treating a woman I'll call Millie. Then 66, she could be classified as a "frequent flier" in my office. Over the roughly six years I was involved in her care, she averaged at least one visit a month, in addition to several hospitalizations. When Millie first came to my clinic, I treated her for depression and heart disease. Over the next few years I also diagnosed PVD, COPD, HTN, diabetes, osteoporosis, and finally lung cancer. Managing Millie's care was challenging; she wasn't very compliant...

HONOLULU - Hawaii faces doctor shortages in at least two fields — obstetrics and orthopedics — because fears of lawsuits and the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance premiums are forcing some to quit. Premiums for physicians who specialize in obstetrics-gynecology are high because insurers are required to pay for the care of injured infants for the remainder of their lives, while orthopedic emergency room work is deemed high risk by because doctors are usually unfamiliar with trauma victims' medical histories. Over the past five years, malpractice insurance for OB-GYNs has risen by 53 percent to $62,500, said Paula Arcena,...

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS - Democrats and Republicans shouted at each other into an early shutdown of the Senate Thursday in Springfield over State Sen. Dave Luechtefeld's medical malpractice bill. Now, Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, fears the measure will be hopelessly lost in a committee backlog. Senate Bill 150 was postponed in a judiciary committee hearing Tuesday. The measure was never called for discussion, even though several physicians came to Springfield to testify on it. Luechtefeld said he suspected the committee, headed by State Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, was stalling and trying to keep the bill from getting to the Senate floor. When Senate...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Legislators delivered Gov. Matt Blunt the two pillars of his pro-business agenda Wednesday -- passing bills limiting injury claims in the state's courts and workers' compensation system. Business groups reveled in the victory -- the culmination of a three-year effort frustrated in the past by Democratic Gov. Bob Holden but embraced enthusiastically by Missouri's new Republican governor. "At long last!" declared a broadly smiling Dan Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "It truly means that Missouri is open for business again." But labor unions, plaintiffs attorneys and many Democrats predicted injured...

By Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, Dorothy Smith PhD ABSTRACT A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.1 Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.2, 2a The number of unnecessary medical and...

The Ohio State Medical Association (OSMA) Frivolous Lawsuit Committee scored a major victory on behalf of Ohio physicians recently when a Stark County judge formally sanctioned a trial attorney for filing a frivolous lawsuit against a Canton-area physician. The judge also ordered the trial attorney to pay $6,000 to the physician as reimbursement for legal expenses incurred as a result of the frivolous suit. "We are very pleased with the positive ruling in this case,” said Almeta E. Cooper, OSMA general counsel and advisor to OSMA's Frivolous Lawsuit Committee, which was instrumental in filing the "motion for sanctions" against trial...

Payouts and claims remained constant, researchers say; medical group, insurance chief dispute findings By Claire Osborn AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, March 10, 2005 Rising medical malpractice premiums in Texas aren't the result of more lawsuits or bigger jury verdicts against doctors, as the insurance industry has long contended, according to a study by professors at the University of Texas and two other universities. The study, which will be released today, examined 15 years of data from the Texas Department of Insurance and found that, adjusted for inflation, population and other factors, claim rates and jury verdicts have been stable since 1988....

(Columbia) March 3, 2005 - The South Carolina House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of medical malpractice bill. It faces a third reading Friday before heading back to the Senate next week, where similar legislation has already been passed. The Tort Reform Act of 2005 Relating to Medical Malpractice limits the liability on non-economic damages to $350,000 per health care provider or institution up to $1.05 million for each plaintiff. Under the act physicians rendering care in life and death emergency cases and obstetricians who provide care in life and death emergency cases to patients who have had...

The Doctors Company, a physician-owned medical malpractice carrier, will file with the Texas Department of Insurance to decrease its average rate level. Ninety percent of the company's current Texas insureds will receive rate reductions. Although some reductions will range up to 30 percent, the average decrease for insureds at $200,000/$600,000 limits of liability is 14 percent. The Doctors Company plans to make this rate reduction effective for new applicants on April 1, 2005 and for renewing policyholders on June 1, 2005. In 2004, The Doctors Company commended the efforts of the legislature and the citizens of Texas for taking dramatic...

Surgeons most frank about adverse eventsTo err is human but admitting it hard for MDs, Norwegian study findsOSLO, NORWAY – Surgeons report the highest prevalence of adverse patient events involving doctors here, concludes a Norwegian Medical Association study that finds physicians must be willing to discuss "near miss" incidents in order to learn from them."If it is accepted that criticism of 'near miss' incidents is a welcome way of improving and adjusting practice, it may also lead to greater acceptance of the fact that to err is human and not necessarily a sign of professional impairment," writes Dr. Olaf Aasland,...

February 27, 2005 Bush's Next Target: Malpractice Lawyers By STEVE LOHR HICAGOTODD A. SMITH is one of the nation's leading medical malpractice lawyers, renowned and feared in the courtroom, having extracted a lengthy string of multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts from doctors, hospitals and insurers over the years. Though wealthy even by the standards of his profession, Mr. Smith, 55, seems to have lost none of the intensity and passion that fuel his 12- to 14-hour workdays and make him a persuasive trial lawyer.Seated in his law firm's conference room, with an Olympian view high above Lake Michigan, Mr. Smith recited...

Speaking before hundreds of doctors and medical workers in a St. Louis suburb last month, President Bush called attention to a neurosurgeon on stage with him in the small auditorium. The doctor, the president said, was paying $265,000 a year in premiums for insurance against malpractice claims. Such high prices, "don't start in an examining room or an operating room," the president declared. "They start in a courtroom." Indeed, at many recent appearances, Mr. Bush has complained about the "skyrocketing" costs of "junk lawsuits" against doctors and hospitals. But for all the worry over higher medical expenses, legal costs do...

......he was going spend the rest of his life comforting and caring for his beloved...... This is what the jury heard, when Michael Schiavo sought an award of lifetime compensation in the care for his disabled wife, Terri. Very noble. Schiavo was clear. HE was going to do for Terri what HE KNEW, without equivocation, he wanted to provide to Terri. LIFETIME care. There was no issue from the then loving and devoted husband about his wife wanting to die; at least when the goal was winning a jury award. Did he intentionally lie to a jury, in order to...

The "tort reform" bill approved by the Georgia Legislature and signed into law this week by Gov. Sonny Perdue may prove to be one of the most destructive pieces of legislation enacted in the state in years. Senate Bill 3 cripples the legal system, not accidentally as a wayward scalpel might, but intentionally. It is designed to prevent juries from delivering the justice that they are charged to produce, even in the worst cases of malpractice by doctors and hospitals. Even in the most egregious cases of incompetence or negligence, such as those that end in the unnecessary death or...

Gov. Sonny Perdue is scheduled to sign into law today the sweeping medical malpractice bill authored by state Sen. Preston Smith, R-Rome. Smith will be at the governor’s side during the signing, set for 3:30 p.m. in the atrium of the Women’s Center at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, according to Smith’s spokesman Brian Knight. “The governor and Sen. Smith will make some remarks, then take a tour of the hospital,” Knight said Wednesday morning. Senate Bill 3 passed the House on Thursday and a change raising damage award caps for pain and suffering to $350,000 from $250,000 was ratified by...

British Boy Survived Three Failed Abortion Attempts, Now Two Years-OldA baby in the U.K. survived three failed abortion attempts and was born alive at 24 weeks into the pregnancy. The baby boy was born at a local hospital after his mother changed her mind about the late-term abortion.I think this says alot about the quality of abortion practice (this was 2002-2003 BTW), that they couldn't get it right after 3 attempts, but the baby was born anyway. It had a lot of health problems but came through to be healthy. She was given RU-486 22 weeks into the pregnany which...

Sweeping civil justice legislation that limits medical malpractice jury awards is all but assured of enactment after an agonizingly close vote Thursday in the Georgia House of Representatives. By an 86-85 vote, the House rejected an amendment that would have imposed no limits on jury awards for patients killed or catastrophically injured by a doctor's negligence — a provision opponents said would have gutted the legislation. The House then approved a bill capping jury awards for pain and suffering — beyond recovering lost wages or medical bills — at $350,000, or up to $1.05 million if multiple defendants are found...

Doctor Accused Of Performing Wrong Surgery On Over 50 Patients POSTED: 9:04 am EST February 10, 2005 WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A doctor may have performed the wrong type of gastric bypass surgery on more than 50 patients at a Wilmington hospital, officials said. Dr. Steven E. Olchowski performed the surgeries between December 2000 and the spring of 2002 at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, which is facing eight malpractice lawsuits stemming from the weight-loss operations. "We cannot be sure about any conversation in Dr. Olchowski's office between him and his patients," Dr. Samuel Spicer, vice president of medical affairs at...

IN HARM'S WAY ALBANY, NY - Carl M. Steubing, a decorated Battle of the Bulge veteran whose experience of war made him a pacifist but also instilled in him a zest for living life at full tilt, took his diagnosis of gastroesophageal cancer in 2001 as a challenge. With a thatch of white hair and a rich baritone voice, Mr. Steubing, at 78, was not ready to succumb to illness. A retired music educator and wedding photographer, he remained active as a church choir director, expert cook, painter, golfer and fisherman. He was married to a woman 24 years his...

Stymied for years by House Democrats who are no longer in power, caps on malpractice jury awards were approved by a House committee and are headed for a floor vote. With little debate, the Special House Committee on Civil Justice Reform approved sweeping tort reform legislation that caps jury awards for a malpractice victim's pain at suffering at $250,000, or up to $750,000 if multiple defendants are liable. The vote followed two days of hearings. "It's light years from where we've been in years past," committee chairman Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) said after the vote. "This bill should help us recruit...

GAINESVILLE Florida's Board of Governors voted 10-3 today to reject a proposed chiropractic school at Florida State University that was sought by powerful lawmakers, but vehemently opposed by some FSU medical faculty. The board did not agree there was a need to create the nation's first chiropractic school at a public university, especially when state funding is so scarce and it could damage the school's reputation. The project has been embroiled in controversy since last year when state lawmakers put $9 million in the state budget for a school. Instead it was a pet project for then Senate President Jim...

ATLANTA - The Georgia Senate approved tighter rules Tuesday for people trying to sue doctors for malpractice, an effort to try to drive down insurance premiums for doctors. The vote came after the state's largest malpractice insurer, MAG Mutual, promised senators in a letter that they'd drop premiums 10 percent if the malpractice bill was approved. Doctors have been pushing for the reforms for years, saying they're being choked by high premiums. The measure limits awards for some damages at $750,000 for people hurt by negligent doctors, and also tweaks rules in the legal system to discourage frivolous lawsuits and...

Parents and teens alike are exploring sexual identity issues. Are they heteroflexible -- or fauxmosexual? Girls barely in their teens are exploring their sexuality. And more and more often, that exploration includes same-sex behavior. The trend has, inevitably, spawned new words. Some say they're "heteroflexible." Others sneer that they're merely "fauxmosexual." Is it really new? More importantly -- to parents and to the teens themselves -- what does it mean? Lisa M. Diamond, PhD, assistant professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, studies young women's sexual orientations, sexual attractions, and sexual behavior. "Women's...

Senate committee OKs sweeping tort reform By Mike Billips Telegraph Staff Writer ATLANTA - A Senate committee voted along party lines Thursday to approve sweeping changes in state laws governing civil suits, including caps on pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases. The bill also calls for a "loser pays" system in civil cases where one side has offered a judgment and been refused. The bill is intended to lower legal costs for insurance companies, allowing them to cut medical malpractice insurance rates. While this package of bills had been considered at length in previous sessions, committee chairman Sen....

My disclaimer is that I have of course changed enough details of the occurrences to maintain confidentiality, but not enough so that the basic truth of the occurrences is obscured. In the finest tradition of northeast mainstream media journalism, you might say that these stories are "fake but accurate".I used to believe that malpractice lawsuits were handled like traffic tickets. Just keep your record clean for five years and it will be removed from your record. Silly me. The liability carriers take a "once-sued always-sued" approach; that is, each and every lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, stays on your record...

Fighting For Her Life Inflicting 'Capital Punishment' on Terri Schiavo... [Patterico] 11/8/03 Imagine that a court is about to decide whether you will live or die. Although it's a frightening thought, you can take comfort in your constitutional rights. Here in the United States of America, your case will be decided by a jury of your peers, which cannot condemn you to death unless it finds the essential facts to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. If the courts convict you unjustly, you can ask the governor to issue a stay, or commute your sentence. And if you do not...