In June, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jose Rodriguez denied a defense motion to reduce a jury verdict for noneconomic damages from $500,000 to $350,000 because the defense offered to arbitrate the claim, further chipping away at Florida’s tort reform laws that cap noneconomic damages in medical professional liability actions. In 2014, the Florida Supreme Court […]

The Oregon Supreme Court last month invalidated statutory limits on noneconomic damages for personal injury claims. The high court ruled that the cap enacted by the legislature in 1987 violates the legal remedy clause of the Oregon Constitution. The decision affirmed an appeals court’s reversal of a trial court ruling on an award for a […]

Thirty-six states have laws on the books which allow physicians and healthcare workers to apologize to patients or their family members in the event of an adverse medical outcome, without it being admissible in court. Kentucky State Senator Ralph Alvarado, MD, who represents the 28th District, wants his state to be number 37. Join us […]

Arguments in favor of and against New Mexico’s medical malpractice compensatory damage cap were made last month, and now the question as to whether it is constitutional rests in the hands of five justices on the state’s Supreme Court. The compensatory cap limits economic and noneconomic damages, but not medical costs or punitive damages, to […]

The new “Disclosure, Apology and Offer Law” from Massachusetts is unprecedented. It has doctors and lawyers working together! It’s a good day. If you follow this blog, you know that we are big fans of tort reform and innovative attempts at lowering medical malpractice costs and streamlining the claim process. The new Disclosure, Apology and […]

A couple of weeks ago an interesting piece of legislation (SB 1506) was put forth in the Florida state senate. Sen. John Thrasher (R-St. Augustine) filed the measure to protect physicians by sovereign immunity from large Florida physician malpractice judgements. It notes the unique feature of emergency room physicians: they are required by law to […]

A new study of call into question the commonly held belief that Texas’s 2003 tort reform not only lowered medical malpractice insurance premiums, but also attracted an influx of doctors to serve the state’s more rural patients The 2003 Texas tort reforms are legendary in medical malpractice insurance circles. At the heart of the reforms […]

The medical liability climate in Florida is a mess. Medical malpractice insurance in Miami’s Dade County is more expensive than any other in the nation, and the high cost of medical malpractice premiums influence too many doctors in the Sunshine State to choose to practice bare, without any liability insurance coverage at all. Add the […]

side note: Conservative Arizona lawmakers are trying to remove obstacles that forbid the General Assembly from imposing caps on the amount of money recoverable for non-economic and punitive damages. Those obstacles are Article 2 sec. 31 and Article 18 sec. 6 of Arizona’s constitution, which specifically prohibit limiting recoverable damages. In short, the two articles […]