Articles Posted in Tort Reform

Yesterday, AAJ released a new report on complete immunity preemption titled, Get Out of Jail Free: A Historical Perspective of How the Bush Administration Helps Corporations Escape Accountability. This report reveals how in a stealth effort coordinated at the highest levels of the Bush administration, federal agencies were repeatedly ordered to usurp state law and undermine consumer protections. To date, seven federal agencies have issued over 60 proposed and final rules with preemption language in the preamble and claimed the authority to provide immunity from state law. 

Last week I wrote a post called “SVMIC Rate Increase – NOT.”  The post explained that SVMIC had not raised its insurance rates for its owner-doctors in 2008.  Read the entire post here.

I then received this comment from Tom:

What’s wrong with making a profit?  I am sure as a business owner that is your goal as well.  Have you reduced the rates to your clients or decreased your contingency % this year (or in a year that you had large profits or extensive reserves)?  While you may not like SVMIC’s clients or practices, they appear to be a well run company.  Well-run company’s [sic] make profits.  Poorly-run company’s [sic] get bailed out by the government.

Did you hear about the State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company rate increase?  No, you didn’t – because it didn’t happen.

Typically the media gets a press release from SVMIC saying that insurance is increasing X% and we hear from the TMA that the world is coming to come to an end as a result of it.

This year, nothing.  Recall of course that the inflation rate in 2007 was close to 3% and this year it is running over 4%.  The health care inflation rate is almost double the normal inflation rate.  Thus, is would be  reasonable to assume rates would increase every year.

The Mississippi Supreme Court accepted review of  a case where the plaintiff failed to attach either an attorney’s certificate of consultation, or an expert disclosure in lieu of the certificate, as required by Mississippi Code Annotated Section 11-1-58 (Rev. 2007).  The question is whether that fact required a dismissal of the suit as set forth in the statute.

The Court held that "a complaint, otherwise properly filed, may not be dismissed, and need not be amended, simply because the plaintiff failed to attach a certificate or waiver."   The basis of the ruling was the seperation of powers between the Legislature and the Court.  The Court said:

Section 11-1-58’s requirement that a certificate accompany the filing of the complaint contradicts these provisions of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure. Furthermore, the statutory requirement is totally inconsistent with Rule 8(f)’s requirement that ‘pleadings shall be so construed as to do substantial justice.’

State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company , the doctor-owned medical malpractice insurance carrier, continues to enjoy profitability, according to my review of its 2007 Annual Report that was recently filed with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance.

A few highlights:

* Surplus, the insurance industry equivalent of net worth, increased almost $28,000,000 to a total of $245,000,000. This follows a $33 million dollar increase in 2006 and a $16.4 million dollar increase in 2005.

Tortsprof Blog has been kind enough to let us know that Directorship has released its second annual Boardroom Guide to State Litigation Climates. According to the Guide:

Directorship’s Best and Worst States for Business

The 10 Best

A story that is of no surprise to anyone who knows anything about human beings … except a decreasing number of doctors and hospitals.

The Chamber of Commerce does an annual ranking of the "lawsuit climate" in the fifty states.  The winning state – Deleware – has the most pro-business climate.  The losing state – West Virginia – has the most anti-business climate.  How are the rankings determined?  By a "sample of in-house general counsel or other senior corporate litigators to explore how reasonable and balanced the tort liability system is perceived to be by U.S. business."

Tennessee is ranked 22nd, down (or is that up?) from 6th last year. 

That’s interesting, when one considers that there have been virtually no changes – and certainly no dramatic changes – in  Tennessee’s substantive law in the previous year.  And the judiciary is 95 percent the same.  Perhaps Tennessee moved lower because other states moved higher.

Tennessee ranks 12th of the 50 states on the U.S. Tort Liability Index.   The list measures the  tort climate from the standpoint of the business and insurance community, so a rank of "1" is a pro-business, pro-insurance company state and a rank of "50" is that dark, dreary place inhabited by jurors who are anti-gun, anti-life, pro-child pornography, tree-hugging communists  (hereinafter referred to as "liberals") and the greedy, scum-sucking trial lawyers who love and manipulate them.

North Dakota ranks first.  Florida ranks fiftieth.    North Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi each have a higher rank than Tennessee; the other southern states rank lower.

In terms of "litigation risks"  Tennessee has the best pro-industry ranking in the country (doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?).

Governor  Bredesen gave his State of the State address last night .  He did not say that he had any desire to limit the right to trial by jury for any citizen against any defendant in any industry.

This comment scares the nursing homes:  "My job is to open more doors to alternatives here in Tennessee. If you want to stay in your home, if it makes sense to do so, this is the year we’re going to start making it easier."  Tennessee spends about $1B per year of its Medicaid money on nursing home care; even a 10% shift will have an impact on the cash flow on the facilities.

The facilities always argue that they lose money on Medicaid patients.  Not true.  It is true that Medicaid payments may not always cover the average cost of keeping a patient in a nursing home.  The government’s goal, however, is for the payments to cover the marginal costs associated with keeping the Medicaid patients in the facilities and the payments usually do so.