North Carolina Trial Law Blog

Next meeting will be 11 am next thursdday. Amendments must be submitted to clerk by Wednesday if next week.

No comments from members.

dr faulkner is a primary care doctor.

He's been sued, and a plaintiff.

Wife Joan. 5 children.

10 Yeats ago burned. Shows photos of her severe burns to her face and photos of slow recovery.

She does not want to relive these times

Learned three truths about med mal:

1. Genuine medical malpractice cases tepresnt the tip o the ice berg of mapractice

2. Very hard to even initiate a claim.

3. Med mal case is just drawn out war.

Current system is tilted toward providers and insurers.

New bill will tilt it even further and simply eliminate claims.

As a physician I know that mistakes happen and we need to be encouraged to be vigilant.

Lowering the standard of care impacts patient safety the wrong way.

I'm an advocate for patients. This bill does not prevent errors. Insulting to him to lower the standard of care to that of a lay person.

This concludes the speakers who will be speaking today.

Says that the provision simply codifies the current state of the law.

He misrepresents the law

Nc did away with the three part duty set up many years ago.

Overrides the common law.

I've brought one premises case in 17 years. This is not an issue in NC

Still galling about the annuities. Least controversial part of this bill.

Rest my fingers.

Tackett is employee of Lawyers mutual.

But not speaking for them.

Says he is here as a neutral for colleagues in national structured settlement groups.

Flaws in the periodic payments sections which could cause inintemder tax consequences.

Offering to help adjust the forced periodic payment language.

Background: insurance defense lawyer, clerked for Chief justice of Nc supreme
Court, 5 years at lawyers mutual selling structured settlements.

Structured settlement issues need to be tweaked to stay tax free.

Sammy Thompson has spent 40 years defending medical malpractice cases.

Best and brightest doctors get sued and they get sued a lot.

Makes te doctors risk adverse

(Dont we want doctors to be risk adverse)

Pushes doctors to order MRIs an Ct scans.

Defensive medicine is wide spread. 3:4 doctors practice defensive. Also 5:6 is defensive

Cites a debunked study that says 1/3 of all health care costs are defensive medicine.

Citing COB study that says malpractice does increase costs of health care. But fails to say that % is very low and almost unmeasureable via COB.

Cites Erskine Bowles cmntee on budget.

Tort reform makes: more stable, more consistent, predictable.

26 states have caps on non-economic damages. You can bing stability andnprdictability with a cap.

Actual Medicaid v charged Medicals.

Providers accept actual expense v the "charged" medical bills. Cites case with chrarged medical bills of 1 million but paid of 250k. Let the jury know the truth.

Collateral source rule misleads the jury about expenses. The truth is future expenses will be paid by health insurance or other sources.

Jury needs to know the truth.

(he does not say the jury needs to know the truth he works for an insurance company and the defendant has 5 Millin in insurance.

Not a lobbyist. Citizen for good medical care.

Telling the story of her son Ethan, who dies because the ER misdiagnosed him with croup to death in 4 days.

Patients need to have safety on medical side. System is failing patients. Non-economic cap is failing the injured.

Has net bs spoke with J1 and has net with 20+ legislators.

The ER provision is a very dangerous provision. 1.5 million admissions to ER. Last year there were 481 malpractice suits filed. 15 of those suits are. ER sues.

1:20,0000 ER admissions results in malpractice claim.

This law closes the doors to valid claims that don't happen often at all.

Back to her sons case. Who would pick up the life time of life support if he has lived? Me.

I'm a fiscal conservative, I'm a republican, and I have a hard time passing on the
Private mistakes to the public via bankruptcy and Medicaid.

Economic value. First heard of it from defense lawyer arguing with her lawyer "You know a 6 year old has no economic value".

Child's life would only be worth 250k. The costs o the case would make it impossible to get a lawyer to help.

Asks that patient safety not be partisan. Appeals to her fellow republicans.

He's misrepresenting the law. Says that products immunity still preserves good cases.

The lie in that is that it only preservers cases where there has been misrepresentation by the manufacturer.

Sorry for all the typos. Doing this in iPhone with "autocorrect". Ugh.

Had to hold the exhibits for Janet Ward Black speaking against immunity on products liability.

It was awesome.

Does NC want to be the only state in the nation where poisoned baby food is given amnesty?

Cites Michigan losing out on 80million on Vioxx settlements.

Now the guy from the manufacturers is speaking.

It's a lot of "blah blah blah" about how the FDA works.

Now he's bashing juries. They don't have expertise, "beyond a juries capability to understand these cases"

The lobbyists think
1). Juries ate stupid and can not be trusted. Or rather, NC juries.
2) NC judges are giving special favors to plaintiff lawyers in attorney fee cases.

Any lawyer should be outraged by this.

Atty fees provison.

Let me tell you a story. Williams sues Mast. Gets verdict of 62 dollars after a 500 offer.

This Atty fees statute allows for this.

Mary sues Carpenter. Jury says $132.94 but you lose, but your lawyer does not lose: Atty fees of $6000

Citing cases where lawyers get large fees based on loses.

He is failing to say that the law considers the the insurance company ought to make offers early, not late.

Asking to make the situation fair.

Says insurance companies are not lowballing. In fact insurance company is offering more than what is fair.

4.1 is a provision not to just hurt parties. Against his interest because it raises the amount to 15k.

Ought to raise the cap.

But if you ate gonna do that make it fair.

Make an unreasonable refusal to settle case. Says it is now unbridled discretion.

Suggests that judges are "doing their friends a favor".