side note: WISCONSIN DOES NOT ALLOW DAMAGES FOR WITNESSING MALPRACTICE: The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a bystander’s medical malpractice award for emotional distress, ruling that the state’s medical malpractice law does not allow bystanders to seek damages for emotional distress. The high court’s 5-2 decision tossed out a lower court’s $200,000 award to a father […]

side note: Texas is being heralded as a model state by tort reform advocates. We do think more time is needed to realize the full impact, because there may be unforeseen problems that arise….say for example, access to care. Enjoy the interview. Metro Corp Counsel Editor: John, we congratulate you for being a leader in […]

The Arizona courts made two decisions in August 2021 affirming the constitutionality of medical professional liability tort reforms that require expert testimony and preclude statements of apology by healthcare providers from being used as evidence of liability. In Sampson v. Surgery Center of Peoria, LLC, the Supreme Court of Arizona held that “a jury in […]

Iowa House Advances Bill with Hard Noneconomic Damage Cap The Labor Committee of the Iowa House of Representatives advanced legislation recently intended to combat the state’s worker shortage by reforming unemployment and tort laws. The bill is divided into two sections: one relates to unemployment insurance and the other would create a $1 million hard […]

The 2022 Q3 #1 State Update can be found here. Missouri Considers Shrinking its Personal Injury Statute of Limitations Legislators in both chambers of the Missouri General Assembly are currently debating bills to shrink the state’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims from five to two years. Only Maine and South Dakota have longer […]

Stakeholders in the decades-long battle over California’s noneconomic damages cap for medical liability jury verdicts announced they have reached a compromise between healthcare, legal and consumer advocates on legislation to modernize the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). Signed into law in 1975, MICRA established a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice awards for things like […]

In March of this year, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bipartisan update to the state’s Medical Malpractice Act just days before the end of the 2023 session. This move prevented a potential medical liability insurance crisis. Senate Bill 523, a compromise between trial lawyers and healthcare professionals, establishes a $1 million cap on medical […]

The Florida Supreme Court last month amended the state’s rules of appellate procedure “to provide for interlocutory review of nonfinal orders that deny a motion dismiss on the basis of the qualifications of a corroborating witness.” Prior to the rule change, medical malpractice defendants had to wait until the conclusion of their trial before appealing […]

The Connecticut Supreme Court recently determined that the executive order by Gov. Ned Lamont granting medical professionals and healthcare facilities immunity from any medical malpractice actions related to care delivered during the state’s COVID-19 response did not apply in two medical malpractice cases. The first case, Mills v. Hartford HealthCare, involved the alleged wrongful death […]