The Business of Law – Marketing and Business for Enterprising Attorneys

Our friends over at the American Association for Justice announced last week that they are wading into the medical malpractice debate in a big way. As you know, the argument that’s been made by countless pundits is that tort reform in general, and medical malpractice reform in particular would lead to huge cost savings for our health care system. I’ll have a lot more to say about that myth in the coming days, but sufficed to say, it’s a ridiculous assertion, as numerous economists have made clear.

AAJ has decided not to let the myths go unchallenged. They have launched a new advertising and advocacy campaign to make sure people understand the importance of civil justice in preventing medical malpractice. The campaign is focused on one very troubling statistic. 98,000 people die every year from preventable error. It’s such an important stat that the AAJ is using the website: www.98000reasons.org as the home base for the campaign.

The TV and print ads which are running across the country make the point that 98,000 deaths is “like two 737s crashing every day for a whole year.”

Pretty powerful stuff. If you agree that tort reform is not the answer to cutting health care costs, and that the civil justice system is an important safety net for protecting patients, then please get involved now in the AAJ’s campaign.

Some of the soldiers who are fighting on the front lines to protect our rights now want a fight at the Supreme Court for theirs.

Right now, active duty military members do not have the right to sue the government .  Two layers in Florida and some members of Congress are trying to change that and if they do, we at Sokolove will be ready to make sure our brave men and women can have their day in court!

Now as I’ve said many times I’m not a lawyer so I don’t want to go into a long analysis of the merits of sovereign immunity, but this seems pretty straightforward.  If a government agent does something negligent and that negligence harms a member of the active duty military, the victim of that injury should be able to sue the government.  It’s pretty straightforward.

Sounds simple enough, file the case, fight it out in court, and see what happens. Enter the Feres Doctrine.  Based on the decision in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), the doctrine prevents enlisted servicemen/women from suing the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces.

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Please, please, please can we stop pretending that the only thing holding up healthcare reform is the fact that we haven’t all agreed to a system that caps medical malpractice awards.  But that unfortunately is just what Bob Beckel over at Real Clear Politics argues.   In fact, he calls it the “Dems Ace in the Hole”.

Let me let Bob have the floor for a minute.  In a nutshell, he argues that Dems don’t support caps on med mal awards, because the trial lawyers have traditionally supported democratic candidates (guilty as charged Bob) and that Dems are afraid that the trial lawyers will abandon the party if they don’t hold the line on caps.

Moreover, Bob seems to imply that the only reason lawyers oppose caps is because huge portions of the punitive damage awards go to the lawyers, and the victimes are compensated with “pitifully” small payments.

Finally, Bob theorizes that if the Dems cave on med mal caps, it will force the Republicans (who are behaving so reasonably right now) to accept other aspects of the healthcare plan that they don’t currently support.

Now let me offer my own two cents…

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