The Supreme Court just issued its opinion in Alsip et al v. Johnson City Medical Center et al. More information on the opinion, holding that defense counsel may not participate in ex parte communications with a plaintiff’s non–party treating physicians, is available over at our firm’s medical malpractice blog. I…
Judge Koch and the Court of Appeals for the Middle Section have ruled that a summary judgment in favor of a doctor in a medical malpractice case must be reversed because the plaintiff was not given adequate time to marshal the facts necessary to respond to it and submit an…
The Joint Commission has released the Fourth Edition of its book “Patient Safety Essentials for Health Care.” The blurb: “This book is the complete guide to the Joint Commission’s safety standards for ambulatory care, behavioral health care, critical access hospital, home care, hospital, and long term care organizations. It includes…
The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that plaintiffs could not argue that a surgeon should have disclosed his displinary history unless there was proof that the standard of care required disclosure. The Court held that plaintiffs “never established that the standard of care required such disclosures. Rather, they ask us…
Steven and I have been having a discussion – it started here. Here is his latest missive: “My mistake, I did not mean to state that this particular lawyer(s) was sleazy, but that the trial bar in general is sleazy. I will admit that there must be some decent trial…
The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the amounts of settlements made by doctor in other cases are not discoverable in another medical malpractice action against him. The case is Miller v. Kelly; it is reported at 130 P.3d 982 (Ariz. App. 2006). The Court held that “the amount…
Go to the Tennessee Medical Malpractice Law Blog for a post on wrong site surgeries.
Teresa Sigmon, attorney for the defendant in a medical malpractice case, allegedly pressured one of the plaintiff’s consulting experts in the case into withdrawing from an agreement to testify for the plaintiff. The plaintiff then sued her, her law firm, and the the medical malpractice insurer for “abuse of process,…
It is getting worse. A study of patients in our Medicare population has found an alarming number of incidents and deaths. The study looked discharge records of Medicare patients and used 16 of “20 indicators for potentially preventable patient safety incidents that could be readily identified in hospital discharge data.…
The Washington Post tells us that hospital-acquired infections cost more than $600M per year – and that is just in Pennsylvania! An excerpt from the article: “Doctors, nurses and patients’ relatives have long known the risks of contracting an infection while in a hospital. But there has been little quantifiable…