Okay so for school I had to answer these questions and then find out how other people would answer them. So please read the short paragraph and answer the two questions that follow it with your own opinions. Thanks for any answers.
A man dies of cancer and his wife feels that he did not receive proper medical treatment. If he had, he would have survived. She files a lawsuit against the hospital and doctors. The jury awards her $ 40,000,000 in damages.
Do you feel such awards are excessive? Why or why not?
Should there be a limit on the amount that can be awarded for medical malpractice suits?
Nghiem
Just because a damage award has a bunch of zeros at the end does not mean that it is excessive. An award is excessive ONLY if it is greater than the harm or injury that was done to the plaintiff. In the question, the wife "feels" that her husband did not receive proper medical treatment. It doesn't matter what she feels or believes; it only matters what can be proven by the evidence. If there is NO evidence of improper treatment (or the cancer is such that he would've died anyway), then the defendants caused no harm and should pay nothing. A damage award of $ 100 would be excessive in that case. But what if the evidence, for example, shows that the patient was misdiagnosed over the course of three years, that the cancer is a type with a high survival rate, the patient is young and otherwise healthy with a very high chance of beating it, and the patient died only because of the delay in being diagnosed and also subsequent negligence in giving proper treatment? That would establish that the hospital and doctors were at fault and should pay damages. Then the question becomes, how much? Like it or not, our civil justice system attempts to assign a dollar value to harm that is done, including lives that are lost. The courts will calculate the deceased's earning potential over the remainder of his lifetime (had he not died). Let's say the victim was a 37 year old highly skilled neurosurgeon with a long promising and lucrative career ahead of him. He easily could have worked another 30 years and pulled in $ 25M in that time. So $ 25M of the verdict would be just to make up for the lost income. Instead of having that income from her husband, his widow (who worked to put him through med school) now has to re-enter the work force to take care of their three young children, who will grow up not having a father around. Is another $ 15M excessive to compensate the widow for the loss of the love of her life, the children for the loss of their daddy, the pain that the husband endured during the illness and botched treatments (yes, the wife gets to recover damages for her husband's pain and suffering before he died)? Looked at it another way, would the wife choose to give the $ 40M back if only she could have her husband and the father of her children back? If you answer yes, then how can you say that the award is excessive?
A case that is often used as a glaring example of a frivolous lawsuit that results in an excessive verdict is the McDonald's hot coffee case. News media reported the case as follows: an old lady goes through a McDonald's drive-thru and gets a cup of coffee; in trying to take the lid off to add sugar, she spills it on herself and gets burned; she sues McDonald's because the coffee was hot and wins millions. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Except that the news media often does not report all the facts about these cases. Read all the facts and decide if you still think the result is excessive: http://www.caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=facts
As for statutory limits on medical malpractice awards, they absolutely do not make sense. A limit ALREADY exists: the money awarded is limited to what injury can be proven in court for a jury to compensate. A statutory limit (say, $ 250K) would be an artificial limit, and it is a slap in the face of juries (like calling those 12 ordinary folks idiots that can't be trusted to make the right decision). It could lead to such injustice. What happens when an act of gross negligence by a doctor results in harm that is worth MORE than $ 250K? We say, sorry you're out of luck? Surgeon has a drug habit, does a back operation while impaired, and renders a 16 year old girl permanently paralyzed from her waist down. Would $ 250K be sufficient to compensate her for being in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, for missing out on so many joys of life, for destroying her dreams forever? I don't think $ 250M would be excessive in that case. How many people would choose $ 250M for paralysis at 16 if given the choice? So what number should the legislature choose as the limit on damages? Whatever that number is, it won't fit in all cases, and it would lead to an injured party not getting the full compensation that he or she deserves.
Sorry for the lengthy response. I'm a lawyer and a college professor, and I feel strongly about these topics. :-)
Orignal From: opinions about filing lawsuits?
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