Tennessee personal injury lawyer Tag Archives

August 3, 2010

Doctors in Thailand Voice Common Arguments Against Being Held Accountable for Errors

The government of Thailand wants to have a scheme to compensate victims of medical malpractice. Many Thai doctors are opposed to the law. Here is an argument made by the physicians, as reported in Taiwan News:

It means our staff would have to be extra careful during work, which would decrease efficiency," said Somkid Auapisithwong of Thai Federation of Doctors, Main Hospitals and General Hospitals, which looks after the interests of medical practitioners in state hospitals. "We’re already very stretched. Some of our nurses have to work almost 365 days. This would add more stress to our staff. They would have to be extra careful with all sorts of risks and this will hinder their work.

Thanks to Torts Prof for informing me about this article.

July 20, 2010

Trying Medical Malpractice Cases in Nashville

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

A recent study gives yet another reason of why it is difficult for a plaintiff to win a medical malpractice case in Nashville.

MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center has released a study that states that puts health care industry’s annual economic impact in Nashville at $30 billion. That represents an increase of 60 percent since 2004. The number of jobs in teh Nashville MSA directly tied to the health care industry has grown from 94,000 to more than 110,000.

The study reports that "[m]ore than 56 major health care companies (public and private) have chosen Nashville as their home, and seven of the nation’s 12 leading for-profit acute care hospital companies are located in Nashville, controlling more than one-third of the investor-owned hospitals in the United States."

May 3, 2010

Oprah Lends Support to Safe Driving Practices

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

PC Magazine Oprah Winfrey has been urging her viewers to promise not to text or make telephone calls while driving. Last Friday she dedicated her show to the subject.

Some 23 states, including Tennessee, have laws banning texting while driving. Eight other states have partial bans on texting while driving. This chart summarizes the law of those states.

A July 2009 study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluded that texting while driving increases the risk of a crash by 20 times. A recent University of Utah study reached a similar result. The Secretary of Transportation has testified that distracted drivers caused the death of nearly 6000 people in 2008.

April 29, 2010

Wrongful Death Claims in Tennessee

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

When a person dies as a result of someone else’s negligence, Tennessee law permits only certain people to assert a claim to recover damages for the death. This article does not discuss who receives the damages awarded by settlement or judgment of the case, but only who has the right to file suit.

Spouse

If the decedent was married, his or her spouse normally has the highest right to pursue the wrongful death claim. A court may deny the surviving spouse the right to bring a wrongful death claim only if the spouse is not legally competent (that is, has some sort of mental problem that would affect his or her ability to bring and pursue a lawsuit), has shown that he or she cannot be trusted to bring the claim (for example, the parties were in a bitter divorce fight at the time of the death), or some other factor (for example, the parties had not lived together for years at the time of the death but had never divorced).

April 22, 2010

Motorcycle Deaths Decline

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

The Governors Highway Safety Administration has released a preliminary report indicating the motorcycle deaths have decreased on our nation’s highways. If the final numbers are substantially similar, deaths will have dropped for the first time in over a decade.

Based on preliminary data gathered for the first nine months of the year, GHSA is projecting that motorcycle fatalities declined from 5,290 in 2008 to 4,762 or less in 2009. The projection is based on data from 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Tennessee had a substantial decrease in motorcycle deaths. During the first nine months of 2008 the number of motorcycle deaths was 132. In 2009, it was 101.

April 12, 2010

Is Your Client on Facebook?

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Stark & Stark’s Pennsylvania Law Monitor has a nice post about the impact of Facebook on personal injury litigation.

An excerpt:

The Internet and social networking sites have changed the face of litigation in this country. However, there are some precautions that you can take to protect yourself, short of boycotting the Internet all together. First, be careful in reviewing the photos and posts on your social networking site. Remove anything that you would not want an insurance company lawyer to see that could help them defend against your case. Next, check your privacy settings which enable you to block certain people from seeing you on a particular site (Facebook allows this). It is also helpful to search your name in the search field and see what comes up to make sure it is acceptable (it is advisable to do this on Google and YouTube as well). Finally never accept friend requests or respond to emails from people you do not know.

March 25, 2010

“Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter” Statistics – Part 4

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

As I mentioned in three previous posts, Shannon Ragland of the Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter has graciously agreed to permit me to share some of the information he has gathered concerning jury trials in Tennessee.

This multi-part series will discuss some of the data contained in Shannon’s 359-page 2009 report. You can buy the report yourself for $175.00. It is well worth the money. Click here to buy the report. The same link will permit you to order Shannon’s monthly newsletter.

Shannon’s 2009 report gathers data about the most common retail defendants in premises cases, employment discrimination cases, dog bite cases, loss of consortium awards, soft tissue cases and more. I think I have gone about far enough in giving away the data he collected and sells (at a reasonable price, I might add) but I will go a little bit further and talk about one more subject.

March 23, 2010

“Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter” Statistics – Part 3

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

As I mentioned in two previous posts, Shannon Ragland of the Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter has graciously agreed to permit me to share some of the information he has gathered concerning jury trials in Tennessee.

This multi-part series will discuss some of the data contained in Shannon’s 359-page report. You can buy the report yourself for $175.00. It is well worth the money. Click here to buy the report. The same link will permit you to order Shannon’s monthly newsletter.

Today we look at medical malpractice verdicts. There were 32 trials in Tennessee in 2009. Plaintiffs won 9 of those cases, and the defense won 23. Seven of those cases were tried in Nashville and five were tried in Memphis.

March 16, 2010

“Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter” Statistics – Part 1

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Shannon Ragland of the Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter has graciously agreed to permit me to share some of the information he has gathered concerning jury trials in Tennessee.

It is fair to say that Shannon has the most comprehensive collection of jury verdict information in the state. Indeed, in my mind it exceeds that offered by the annual reports published by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Why do I say this? First, Shannon gets paid to collect data and report it accurately. Second, the clerks report data to the AOC, and not every clerk is going to apply the same criteria when he or she completes the report. Thus, there is increased likelihood that data will not be consistently reported and this, of course, impacts the results.

This multi-part series will discuss some of the data contained in Shannon’s 359-page report. You can buy the report yourself for $175.00. It is well worth the money. Click here to buy the report.

February 25, 2010

Patient Rights and Health Care Reform

by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C.

Will the President sacrifice the rights of patients injured by medical malpractice to get Republicans to sign-off on a health care bill?

Steven Olsen explains why the President should not in this article titled "Why Shouldn’t Obama Throw Injured Patients Under the Bus to Get Heath Reform? Ask Steven Olsen."

Steven Olsen is a malpractice victim from California. Here is a letter written by the jury foreman after he learned that the jury’s damage award was cut because of California’s cap on damages.