Med-Mal Cases Down - Is 'Tort Reform' the Cause?
The 15 medical malpractice cases in the Top 100 jury verdicts of 2003 were a mixed bag of tragedies that may (or may not) have been affected by efforts to limit tort rights. The verdicts totaled $545.5 million. While that is a robust sum, it is nearly $178.6 million less than in the previous year's top verdicts, even though 2003 had two additional cases. Some attorneys and med-mal experts contend that trend-spotting is a pointless parlor game leading to faulty conclusions. Verdicts are fact-driven, they say. Others see shrinking verdicts and blame "tort reform," which, they say, includes damage caps in 27 states and indirectly affects juries everywhere.
Verdicts
Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.
Expert Witness Liability: An Expanding Field
Expert witnesses have become a necessity in virtually all litigation, from medical malpractice to products liability to family law cases. Technical understanding of disputes is required for juror determination in this increasingly technical world. Damages need to be calculated using expert data; professional standards and their application to any medical malpractice action require expert opinion. But what happens when the side hiring the expert loses, or the independent evaluation doesn't come up with the hoped-for answer? Increasingly, what happens is the disappointed party sues the expert. In some cases, the experts have immunity to lawsuit, but in an increasing number of instances, they simply do not.
Med Mal News
National news of interest to you and your practice.
Recent Developments in Executive Compensation
Although executive compensation has been the subject of evolving reform for several years, the bright spotlight of public attention is now focused on this issue, due in part to the bursting of the stock market bubble, the collapse of Enron, and a number of other highly publicized corporate scandals. The image of executives enjoying excessive compensation packages as revenues and earnings decline, and stock values of the companies they manage plummet, is a dangerously common stereotype.
Bullies in the Workplace
Bullying isn't just a playground issue. In an era of declining unionization, job insecurity, and the global profit squeeze, bullying has become a serious workplace problem, even though workplace bullies usually prefer memos, informal disciplinary meetings and grinding criticism to spitballs. Left unchecked, on-the-job abuse adversely affects both employers and employees. Current legal theories, though, are inadequate to address this recent phenomenon.
Investors May Be Liable to WARN Act Plaintiffs
Major investors in companies that commit violations of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act may not be immune to liability, according to a federal court sitting in the Southern District of New York. <i>Vogt v. Greenmarine Holding, LLC</i>, No. 02 Civ. 2059 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 1, 2004). Relying on Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, the court denied a motion to dismiss the claims of a class of plaintiffs who were terminated by a bankrupt company against the investors in the bankrupt entity.
