Illinois Deserves the Truth

Med Mal Caps, in Court and in the News

The state state Supreme Court just listened to oral arguments over IL's 2005 medical malpractice caps law.  To coincide, the Illinois Times ran a story this morning outlining the issue.  It features quotations from CJ&D executive director Joanne Doroshow, and - what do you know? - actually presents the perspective of victims.  This perspective has been lost underneath a lot of biased reporting this year (here, here, here for a few examples), so it's nice to see a news organization honestly explain to the public what, and who, this issue is ultimately all about.

“In a very, very serious case, a cap like this is very cruel to the patient,” Doroshow says. “Especially if we’re talking about a child that is catastrophically injured and will need compensation for the rest of their life. There really is a tremendous hardship on families.”

Check out the story here.

Med Mal Caps Law in IL Supreme Court Tomorrow

It’s been a long time coming.  Almost a year ago exactly, a Cook County Circuit Court Judge declared Illinois' cruel 2005 caps law unconstitutional.  The case went to the state Supreme Court, with oral arguments slated for tomorrow morning.  We don't need to repeat why this law must be struck down (see here, here, and all over our blog).  It is unlawful, cruel and harmful to the most vulnerable patients, and does not alleviate malpractice insurance costs.  Hopefully, the High Court follows the lead of previous decisions and puts patients' rights over Big Insurance.

Hey “Tort Reform” Groups – Time to Go Away Now!

Cross posted from The Pop Tort by Andy Hoffman

Check out this article in the Madison County/St. Claire Record (a newspaper owned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) for a great description of how Obama’s win last night is fabulous news for the civil justice system—only be forewarned, because it’s written by someone from the right-wing (and obviously out-of-touch) Manhattan Institute you’ll have to translate the semi-Orwellian language.  So, when you read something like “Efforts to restore fairness and balance to the nation’s courts could take a giant step backward,” know that you’re actually reading something like “Cruel efforts to deny injured consumers access to the courts may be headed for the scrap heap!”

While you’re at it, also check out this entertaining UPI article that shows how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (recent blog links here and here) is now trying to make nice with Obama, U.S. Senators and other members of Congress it tried to defeat.  The Chamber went from “deploying nearly 600 staffers to key states, spending millions of dollars on ads, sending 15 million emails and 6.5 million pieces of mail, and making more than 6 million phone calls,” to curling up like a lapdog, pledging to “play a helpful role in the transition process.” 

Let’s hope their “helpful role” consists of going away now. 

Illinois News Roundup

Illinois will pocket $3 million from a 33-state settlement over deceptive marketing practices by drug manufacturer Pfizer.

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The FDA announced a new website for consumers looking into current FDA safety efforts.  Visit it at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drugSafety.htm.

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Doctors misdiagnosed a 33 year old Chicago man's heart condition five times, leading to an infection and eventually a permanently disabling stroke.  Last week, the man settled his lawsuit with those responsible.

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Another faulty children’s product recall: this time it’s 1.6 million Delta cribs responsible for several infant deaths.

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The Department of Justice and AGs from 13 states – including neighbors Iowa and Missouri - filed a lawsuit to stop a merger of two of the nation’s top beef packers. 

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The FDA denied Illinois-based Abbott Labs’ request for approval of their extended-release Vicodin.

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Read this sobering article about how seniors have had to watch their legal rights slowly stripped away in recent years.

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Big Business spends a lot of time and money whining about the need for "tort reform", but that doesn’t stop them from turning around and quietly using the courts themselves.  Lately, we need look no further than a trio of homegrown Chicago-area corporations that evidently think the civil justice system is great (as long as they're the plaintiffs, that is).

• Deerfield-based pharmacy chain Walgreen Co., which filed a suit against drug manufacturer Wyeth.

• Schaumburg-based iPCS Inc., a telecom company suing affiliate Sprint Nextel.

• Riverwoods-based Discover Financial Services, the credit card company that recently settled its suit against Visa and Mastercard.

Let's see...pharmaceuticals, telecoms, and credit card companies.  Yeah, those industries just love the civil justice system.  Visit The Pop Tort ‘hypocrisy’ page for more examples corporate duplicity.

Complete Immunity from Lawsuits – The Lasting Damage of the Bush Administration

Cross post from The Pop Tort by Andy Hoffman

A fantastic new investigative report from the American Association for Justice (AAJ) called “Get Out of Jail Free: A Historical Perspective of How the Bush Administration Helps Corporations Escape Accountability”  finds, through documents obtained from a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, that “multiple federal agencies were repeatedly ordered to usurp state law and undermine consumer protections,” for the purpose of giving total immunity to corporations instead.

This issue – preemption – is one of the hottest civil justice topics today.  The anti-consumer U.S. Supreme Court could soon give its blessing to this massive Bush Administration effort, which was also highlighted today by  the Wall Street Journal.  Check out the article and video detailing how the Bush administration intends to spend its last days in office rewriting “a wide array” of federal rules that could prevent product-safety suits by injured consumers for years to come…  According to the article,

The administration has written language aimed at pre-empting product-liability litigation into 50 rules governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine. The latest changes cap a multiyear effort that could be one of the administration's lasting legacies, depending in part on how the underlying principle of pre-emption fares in a case the Supreme Court will hear next month.....The use of rulemaking to protect corporations from product liability was discussed from early in the Bush administration, said former Bush domestic-policy adviser Jay Lefkowitz, who was instrumental in the process.

 

Supreme Court Begins the New Term Wrestling With Preemption

Cross post from The Pop Tort by Andy Hoffman

Well civil justice fans, it’s opening day for the U.S. Supreme Court, and first up on the Court’s docket is the federal preemption case, Altria v. Good.

In a nutshell, the tobacco company Altria Group is trying to get the Supreme Court to scuttle a class action suit against it that was brought under Maine’s deceptive advertising laws, based on its suggesting that “low tar” and “light” cigarettes were a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes. They’re not. But the company is trying to argue that because there’s a 1965 federal law on the books that regulates this area, cigarette companies should be completely immune from liability – no matter how deceptive their advertising is.

Reports about today’s arguments suggest that the court seemed split, even though the Bush Administration was on the side of the smokers! One report said, “Justice Samuel Alito and other justices blasted the FTC for continuing to allow cigarette companies to make light cigarette claims. ‘You've created this whole problem,’ Alito said, lecturing Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, an assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General. ‘You have misled everyone who bought these cigarettes for a long time.’”

Well civil justice fans, it’s opening day for the U.S. Supreme Court, and first up on the Court’s docket is the federal preemption case, Altria v. Good.

In a nutshell, the tobacco company Altria Group is trying to get the Supreme Court to scuttle a class action suit against it that was brought under Maine’s deceptive advertising laws, based on its suggesting that “low tar” and “light” cigarettes were a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes. They’re not. But the company is trying to argue that because there’s a 1965 federal law on the books that regulates this area, cigarette companies should be completely immune from liability – no matter how deceptive their advertising is.

Reports about today’s arguments suggest that the court seemed split, even though the Bush Administration was on the side of the smokers! One report said, “Justice Samuel Alito and other justices blasted the FTC for continuing to allow cigarette companies to make light cigarette claims. ‘You've created this whole problem,’ Alito said, lecturing Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, an assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General. ‘You have misled everyone who bought these cigarettes for a long time.’”

Special Supreme Court Sneak Peak

Cross Post from The Pop Tort by Andy Hoffman

Attention civil justice fans!  The U.S. Supreme Court is about to start a new term, so we thought we’d give you the heads up on some interesting cases coming your way…

Wyeth v. Levine:  We’ve already mentioned that this case was front-page news in the New York Times last week.  Expect to hear a lot more about it in the days ahead.  At stake are tens of thousands of product-liability suits by consumers against drug companies for causing injuries or death, and whether the pharmaceutical industry should have complete immunity when they put unsafe, sometimes lethal drugs on the market.  (Not to mention, Levine’s compensation for her amputated arm!)

Van de Kamp v. Goldstein:  Thomas Goldstein, imprisoned for 24 years on a wrongful murder conviction, says that prosecutors failed to share crucial information about a jailhouse informant’s testimony during his trial, leading to his wrongful conviction.  The justices must decide whether someone in Goldstein’s position may sue prosecutors for damages, or whether the prosecutors are entitled to absolute immunity. 

Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee: This case involves a kindergarten student in Hyannis, Mass., who was sexually harassed on the school bus by an 8-year-old boy. The parents sued the school district over their daughter’s treatment.  The suit was based on several different laws, one of which was federal Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded schools. Title IX doesn’t allow individual lawsuits, so the issue is whether a suit can still be brought under other laws, including the U.S. Constitution.

Ashcroft v. Iqbal: the court will consider whether Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller can be “sued damages by the Muslim men who were rounded up and imprisoned under harsh conditions in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”  The government settled with one victim, but another, “a 33-year-old cable television installer on Long Island at the time of his arrest” who was tortured in a Brooklyn prison, is pursuing his case.

Illinois Deserves the Truth about Med Mal Caps

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published our letter in yesterday's op-ed page.

Arbitrary malpractice caps only hurt victims

Regarding "Illinois' med mal law on trial" (Aug. 18): Amid all the arguments over the upcoming Supreme Court decision on Illinois' medical malpractice caps, the people whom caps really hurt too often are forgotten. At their core, "caps" prevent the victims of tragic, avoidable medical mistakes from seeking fair compensation for a lifetime of harm.

Caps weaken the authority of our judges and jurors by placing a one-size-fits-all label on victims' tragedies. They apply no matter how egregious the misconduct or devastating the injury. And they have been shown to disproportionately hurt senior citizens, minorities, women and children. Clearly, juries are better able to determine compensation in individual cases than politicians in Springfield, Ill.

Yet, "tort reformers" ignore these brutal consequences and instead cite discredited rankings compiled by big business and its front groups. All this really does is shift the focus away from innocent victims, the people whose lives are changed forever by no fault of their own.

Discussion should get to the heart of the issue and explore how these caps actually limit patients' constitutional rights. 

Fortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court has seen through tort reformers' distortions and twice has struck down similar cruel limits. We hope it continues to uphold the Illinois constitution and allow injured children and their families to be compensated adequately for the unimaginable harm caused by gross medical negligence.

Illinois News Roundup

We posted the other day about the abuse lawsuit against the Belleville Diocese, and stressed keeping victims' needs and prevention a top priority.  Yesterday, the jury erased any worries in a speedy decision for James Wisniewski, the abuse victim, by awarding him $5 million.  Now, let’s hope the decision means the diocese won't let anything like this happen again.

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The State Journal-Register recently ran an article about a lawsuit filed against the state, by local politicians and the Springfield Chamber of Commerce.  Today, their op-ed page featured a great letter by Bruce Beeman pointing out the hypocrisy of business groups attacking trial lawyers while quietly filing lawsuits themselves.  (This earlier article provides some more details on the the Springfield Chamber’s involvement in the suit).

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Last year, two Orland Park car dealerships sent fraudulent mailings out to at struggling car owners.  Lisa Madigan’s new suit says they violated consumer protection laws and should repay consumers for each violation.

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This Granite City Press article seems like a harmless case for medical helicopters, until you get to the end, where the writer quotes someone who blames the courts for doctors' high malpractice insurance rates.  “Tort deformers” are really good at this.  They repeat these lies long enough and pretty soon people start believing it and talking about it as if it's established fact.  Unfortunately for them, it simply isn’t true (see here, and here...and here!).