Newly Married Lesbian Couple Files Suit

AP ^ | May 22, 2004 | AP

[Brilliant]

BOSTON - One day after getting married, a lesbian couple filed a medical malpractice lawsuit asking that one of the women receive damages because doctors failed to detect breast cancer in her spouse.

The lawsuit filed Friday claims "loss of consortium" for Michelle Charron, 44, because of the advanced breast cancer in new wife Cindy Kalish, 39.

Loss of consortium is a legal claim long available to spouses, but only newly available to gay and lesbian couples since the state began allowing same-sex marriage Monday. The lawsuit provides a glimpse into the kinds of legal battles involving gay and lesbian unions that Massachusetts courts can now expect.

"I think there will be tons and tons of incidental issues, and this apparently is the first one," said Boston lawyer Steven Schreckinger.

Charron and Kalish were seventh in line on Monday to apply for a wedding license, and were married Thursday. The lawsuit contends that two doctors affiliated with Fallon Clinic failed to order a biopsy for a lump in Charron's breast, which she first brought to their attention in December 2002.

By the time the biopsy was performed nearly eight months later, Charron's lump had grown and she was diagnosed with advanced cancer that had spread to her liver and sternum. Doctors have given her 10 years to live.

A spokeswoman for Fallon Clinic declined to comment on the case.

The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that unmarried partners cannot bring lack of consortium claims, said David White-Lief, a specialist in personal injury law and a former chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association's civil litigation section.

Schreckinger said the lawsuit's timing could be challenged, because the alleged negligence was before the couple was married. But the couple's lawyer, Ann Maguire, said the court will view the case differently because marriage was not an option before Monday. The couple had a commitment ceremony in 1992.

[Lancey Howard]

Sounds like she had an abortion earlier in life.

[nothingnew]

"They've only just begun......"

FMCDH

[Felis_irritable]

"How does the average employer deal with a whole demographic of new people added to the health care rolls, many of which are high risk for disease and physical violence?"

Individual medical insurance at significantly higher rates. No more family plans - if you have a 2 year old and a 4 year old and a spouse, that's 4 plans for you buddy. And since they won't be able to take the risky homosexual lifestyle you so accurately describe into account, we'll all pay more.

I am not enamored of the insurance industry, but this is unreasonable risk even for them

[arthurus]

You really want more yankee liberals in Florida? They bring their culture with them and try to politically impose it on the rest of us, even if it is that culture that they are running away from.

[SirTaurus]

How has this gotten so out of hand so quick?


In NY we have a U.S. senate race and the republican challanger supports a national civil union bill

[lepton]

bookmark bump

[Pikachu_Dad]

Now we know why they want to get married.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

And just wait until the fags with AIDS start "marrying" "partners" with medical insurance. If you think your medical insurance premiums are high now, just wait a few months!

[tessalu]

Every aids person needs to find some one with a job that confers health insurance on same sex marriages. That will finish them off. Massachusetts deserves God's wrath.

[tessalu]

Every aids person needs to find some one with a job that confers health insurance on same sex marriages. That will finish them off. Massachusetts deserves God's wrath.

[Blue Highway]

And just wait until the fags with AIDS start "marrying" "partners" with medical insurance. If you think your medical insurance premiums are high now, just wait a few months!

This is the decay of our society as we know it. Subsidizing gays, lesbians, AIDS and the homosexual lifestyle. Now it is on our dime.

[Ciexyz]

The longer I live, the more I've come to see that the game of living is all about the redistribution of wealth: people planning, jockeying, maneuvering to position themselves so they can take money legally or illegally from the system and people within that system.

[M Kehoe]

The trial lawyers are happy, very happy.

This case opens up all kind of possibilities. Just like redefining the definition of marriage, this case could redefine the definition of conjugal visit. Or loss of consortium. And, if they have multiple sex partners, and get divorced, it could re-define the definition of adultery.

As Fritz Hollings would say, "there's a lot of redefining goin' on out there."

5.56mm

[freekitty]

I think 69 cents is reasonable since she probably was not worth a million dollars in the practices of B and C.

[Steve Eisenberg]

Health care will remain unaffordable until lawyers, malpractice litigation, and unlimited plaintiff's awards are eliminated from the system.

The bill for these awards, including the lawyers' take, is paid by all patients.

The solution is to have the costs of malpractice paid for solely by patients who want such legal protection. My wife and I should be able to sign a firm notarized promise to forgive our doctors for any mistakes they make with ourselves or our children. Malpractice insurers should be forced to base rates on the proportion of a doctor's patients who have signed such waivers, and health insurers should be required to charge separate rates for waiver and non-waiver patients.

[scott7278]

Disgusted ping.

[EdReform]

Ping

What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)

Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues"

[little jeremiah]

Homosexual Agenda Ping - Well, Suprise, Surprise, Surprise!!! Who would've thunk it! Golly Gee, this couldn't be the beginning of the Tsumani, could it? Nope, just an isolated incident.

Fer shure there won't be any more wild and wacky lawsuits. I'm sure these two honorable ladies couln't possibly have planned this in advance.

Watch the destruction of civilization happen right before your eyes, folks. Step right up, in living 3-D and full spectrum color.

Want to put a halt to this cr*p?

I do.

Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.

[little jeremiah]

I've posted these quotes before, but they are very relevant on this thread. Not only do homosexual activists (and how many aren't activists?) want same sex "marriage" for money, they have more insidious reasons, as they admit themselves: (If anyone has any doubts or curiosity about exactly WHY homosexuals want same sex marriage, it's worth the read.)

From LA Times of March 12 2004...
Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor who runs the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, recommends legalizing a wide variety of marriage alternatives, including polyamory, or group wedlock. An example could include a lesbian couple living with a sperm-donor father, or a network of men and women who share sexual relations.

One aim, she says, is to break the stranglehold that married heterosexual couples have on health benefits and legal rights. The other goal is to "push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society."

Homosexual activist Michelangelo Signorile, who writes periodically for The New York Times, summarizes the agenda in OUT magazine (Dec/Jan 1994):

"A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes, but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution... The most subversive action lesbian and gay men can undertake --and one that would perhaps benefit all of society--is to transform the notion of family entirely."

"Its the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statues, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into the public schools and in short to usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us."

Chris Crain, the editor of the Washington Blade has stated that all homosexual activists should fight for the legalization of same-sex marriage as a way of gaining passage of federal anti-discrimination laws that will provide homosexuals with federal protection for their chosen lifestyle.

Crain writes: "...any leader of any gay rights organization who is not prepared to throw the bulk of their efforts right now into the fight for marriage is squandering resources and doesn't deserve the position." (Washington Blade, August, 2003).

Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual activist writing in his book, "Virtually Normal", says that once same-sex marriage is legalized, heterosexuals will have to develop a greater "understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman." He notes: "The truth is, homosexuals are not entirely normal; and to flatten their varied and complicated lives into a single, moralistic model is to miss what is essential and exhilarating about their otherness." (Sullivan, Virtually Normal, pp. 202-203)

Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor and homosexual activist has said: "Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. . Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family; and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society's view of reality." (partially quoted in "Beyond Gay Marriage," Stanley Kurtz, The Weekly Standard, August 4, 2003)

Evan Wolfson has stated: "Isn't having the law pretend that there is only one family model that works (let alone exists) a lie? . marriage is not just about procreation-indeed is not necessarily about procreation at all. "(quoted in "What Marriage Is For," by Maggie Gallagher, The Weekly Standard, August 11, 2003)

Mitchel Raphael, editor of the Canadian homosexual magazine Fab, says: "Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage. I'd be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of 'till death do us part' and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play." (quoted in "Now Free To Marry, Canada's Gays Say, 'Do I?'" by Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, August 31, 2003)

1972 Gay Rights Platform Demands: "Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit." [Also among the demands was the elimination of all age of consent laws.]

[MeekOneGOP]

The lawsuit filed Friday claims "loss of consortium" for Michelle Charron, 44, because of the advanced breast cancer in new wife Cindy Kalish, 39.

Loss of consortium is a legal claim long available to spouses, but only newly available to gay and lesbian couples since the state began allowing same-sex marriage Monday. The lawsuit provides a glimpse into the kinds of legal battles involving gay and lesbian unions that Massachusetts courts can now expect.

I'm still not exactly sure what it means, not really.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer either .....

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/consortium.html

con·sor·ti·um [ kən sáwrtee əm, kən sáwrshəm, kən sáwrshee əm ] (plural con·sor·ti·a [ kən sáwrtee ə, kən sáwrshə, kən sáwrshee ə ]) noun  1. combination of organizations for common purpose: an association or grouping of institutions, businesses, or financial organizations, usually set up for a common purpose that would be beyond the capabilities of a single member of the group 2. right to marital company and affection: the right of husbands or wives to the company, affection, and help of their spouses ( archaic ) [Early 19th century. From Latin, “fellowship,” from consors  “fellow” (see consort).] con·sor·ti·al adjective