Almost four years ago Tennessee adopted a requirement that health care provides were entitled to receive advance notice of the filing of Tennessee medical malpractice (now call "health care liability) lawsuits. Under the current version of the statute, notice must be given in the manner proscribed by statute before the…
How often are sponges, towels, pads and other foreign objects left in surgical patients? The Doctor’s Company, a medical malpractice insurer, has shared some information that helps us get an idea of the scope of the problem. The insurer reports that from 2002 through 2011, there were 3,273 surgical claims…
The National Practioner Data Bank, the entity that gathers data about medical malpractice claims, reports that paid medical malpractice claims continue to drop. In 2001, the total number of paid claims was 20,319. In 2010, the number had dropped to 13,277. Now, a new report released by Kaiser citing data…
Tennessee has a goofy rule concerning expert witnesses that, to my knowledge and belief, exists in no other state. Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-115(b) requires any expert witness in a medical malpractice state to practice in Tennessee or a border state unless the trial court “determines that the appropriate witnesses otherwise would not…
Tennessee law requires that the plaintiff present expert proof that the defendant violated the standard of care applicable in the community in which the care was given at the time the care was given. Proof of the standard can come from an otherwise qualified expert who knows the standard of…
Medical malpractice case filings were up last year but are still below the filings for the year when the first tort reform hit medical malpractice cases. October 1, 2008 was the date that pre-suit notice and certificates of good faith became required. In the year before the law change, 646…
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court’s finding that an expert witness was not qualified to testify on behalf of a plaintiff in a health care liability action, relying on Shipley v. Williams, 350 S.W.3d 527 (2011). In Bock v. University of Tennessee Medical Group, Inc.,…
Four professors have written an article titled "Do Poor People Sue Doctors More Frequently? Confronting Unconscious Bias and the Role of Cultural Competency." The article concludes that "Contrary to popular perception, existing studies show poor patients, in fact, tend to sue physicians less often. This may be related to a…
State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company, the Tennessee medical malpractice insurer owned by the doctors themselves, has had another profitable year even with its significant rate decrease. The company, which insures about 75% of the doctors in the state, has announced the following financial results and other data for the year…
Insurance Journal reports that the parents of a child born with cystic fibrosis sued various Montana health care providers, saying that had they known of the genetic disorder they would have terminated the pregnancy. Cystic fibrosis causes sticky mucus buildup in the lungs and other organs, leading to infections, digestive…