Another A@@ININE LAWSUIT

[Monty Python]

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I truly believe this country is being taken down the toilet by lawyers. This defies all logic, even more than the propofol lawsuit.

http://www.anesthesiologynews.com/i...w=dept&ses=ogst&issue_id=633&article_id=15127

Attending who has no involvement with patient's care, but who is accidentally included on the automated electronic anesthesia record, spends $10,000 just to defend himself and clear his name. Yet ..... read the final slap in his face.

This is so wrong I want to scream.

 

[leaverus]

“Physicians may not want to hear this, but plaintiffs’ attorneys have to sue everybody to protect their clients from the ‘empty chair’ defense, in which a responsible party is overlooked simply because he or she was not named in the suit within the statute of limitations,” he said.

Wow, that's some sound logic right there - they've convinced me that must be the right thing to do.

 

[leaverus]

Actually, the lawsuit itself may not be asinine because we don't know in what way the C**A f'd up (apart from selecting the wrong attending from the dropdown box).

 

[jwk]

Maybe this was the case being discussed in another thread, http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=724543 where everyone with their name entered on the CPU got tagged in the suit for an incorrect count. Again, the problems related to tort reform. $10K just for legal fees to point out that they shouldn't actually be a party to a lawsuit. Jeez.


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That's really a stretch in anyone's book, no offense. Even with joint and several liability, how would an anesthesiologist be found culpable in such a case? I can easily understand surgeon, scrub, circulator, and hospital, but not anesthesia. Got a case citation?

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This is coming directly from a lawyer's live presentation to our group. Not my claim. You may call the Preferred Physicians Medical Risk Group (they are one of the biggest anesthesia insurance companies in the U.S.) and ask any of their lawyers for a specific case citation. That fact that it is number 10 on the claims list tells you that there has been claims made against anesthesiologists for wrong counts. It is not a far stretch when a final count has not been performed: your name is entered into the CPU as having been the anesthesiologists (thus you have signed off on the final count, whether you care to believe that or not), and you can get successfully sued for it...

 

[bigdan]

“Physicians may not want to hear this, but plaintiffs’ attorneys have to sue everybody to protect their clients from the ‘empty chair’ defense, in which a responsible party is overlooked simply because he or she was not named in the suit within the statute of limitations,” he said.

Wow, that's some sound logic right there - they've convinced me that must be the right thing to do.

Worst thing is that quote comes from a "physician". Simply incredible.

dc

 

[Dimoak]

“Physicians may not want to hear this, but plaintiffs’ attorneys have to sue everybody to protect their clients from the ‘empty chair’ defense, in which a responsible party is overlooked simply because he or she was not named in the suit within the statute of limitations,” he said.

So if the lawyer isn't initially sure who should be named to the lawsuit, they'll just blanket-name a bunch of individuals, and then it's up to individuals to show why their names don't belong on the docket. As others have said, a nice component to potential tort reform would at least be to have the plaintiff or their attorney pay the legal fees of individuals incorrectly named to lawsuits to at least dissuade such tactics; I'm all for protecting the rights of a patient to compensation in the event that evident malpractice has indeed occurred, but there should be some more middle-ground between that and protecting people from frivilous litigation; providers shouldn't be "guilty until proven innocent".

 

[kmurp]

Why isn't this physicians' malpractice company absorbing the legal fees? That's how it usually works.