11 August

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Florida Supreme Court strikes down an obstetrician’s “mandatory” patient arbitration agreement.

Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down A pregnant patient was having contractions but because she showed up a few minutes late for the appointment with her obstetrician, they turned her away without an examination and rescheduled her for another date. Unfortunately, she delivered her stillborn son before the new appointment. After she and her husband filed a malpractice law suit, the doctor tried to get the case thrown out, arguing that they had waived their rights to file a law suit by signing his medical office’s mandatory arbitration agreement. Naturally, the arbitration agreement the doctor was using contained very unfavorable terms for his...

03 August

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$7.9 million dollar medical malpractice verdict for 77-year-old stroke victim

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in medical malpractice

The Plaintiff, a woman in her seventies, had been on the anticoagulant drug Coumadin for years. This was due to a propensity for developing dangerous blood clots. She had a heart condition known as “AFib,” or atrial fibrillation. This means that her heart sometimes beat irregularly, and too fast, which can cause the heart to throw off clots that could travel to other parts of the body. The patient also had a pacemaker to help control the AFib. Her pacemaker provided monitored heart data, which showed she was still having frequent intermittent episodes of AFib, yet her physicians inexplicably took her off the...

31 July

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Congrats to UCF on Their New Teaching Hospital, But….

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in medical malpractice, statute

Congratulations to the University of Central Florida on obtaining state approval for building a new teaching hospital to go along with its new medical school. We are fans of UCF and wish them great success with their medical school. Unfortunately, there are two concerns that affect consumers that aren’t being mentioned in most of the news stories. The first is that they chose HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) as their partner building and running the hospital. It’s a shame they chose a “for-profit” hospital chain when there are so many outstanding non-profit hospital systems they might have partnered with, like Orlando...

24 July

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Payouts Decline for the 15th Straight Year

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in claims, medical malpractice, statute

Medical Malpractice Payments Decline for the 15th Straight Year Insurance companies and doctors frequently complain that the rising cost of malpractice claims is a reason to place restrictions on malpractice law suits. They claim there are too many law suits and claim a need to place caps on the amounts patients can recover for severe injuries because the costs of these awards are onerous, and climbing. However, for the 15th year in a row, malpractice payouts both in Florida and nationwide, have declined, according to statistics released from The National Practitioner Data Bank. Insurance companies, of course, are interested in maintaining their bottom line and their stock holders' dividend payouts are more important than covering...

24 April

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Jury verdict for patient overturned on appeal because the patient’s expert gave surprise testimony at trial

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in Legal Advice, medical malpractice, statute

A patient died of meningitis caused by an ear infection, and his widow sued for medical malpractice. Up until trial, there was no allegation in the pleadings or by the patient’s experts during their pre-trial depositions that the defendant doctor had been negligent by giving the patient samples of Levaquin, an antibiotic. However, during the trial, two of the patient’s expert witnesses testified for the first time that they believed that the doctor had been negligent by giving Levaquin. The package insert from Levaquin was also admitted into evidence over the defendants’ objection, and the plaintiff reemphasized the Levaquin issue...

03 March

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Appeals court holds that a claim brought against a hospital

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in Legal Advice, medical malpractice, statute

Appeals court holds that a claim brought against a hospital alleging failure to properly screen its staff members, one of whom then sexually assaulted the patient, is a medical malpractice case and must follow all of the medical malpractice procedural rules. The patient’s lawsuit had two parts. The first part claimed that the hospital was negligent and failed to exercise reasonable care for her safety. A second part of the lawsuit was based on §766.110, Florida Statutes, titled “Liability of Healthcare Facilities.” §766.110 is a law that says there is a duty on the part of hospitals “to … assure...

15 February

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Court order reinstating medical malpractice complaint after dismissal

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in Legal Advice, medical malpractice, statute

Appeals court quashes trial court order reinstating medical malpractice complaint after dismissal based on failure to comply with presuit expert “same specialty” requirement. There is a statute in Florida that says that in a medical malpractice case, the parties can only bring in expert witnesses to testify about the appropriate standard of care who are in the exact same medical specialty as the defendant health care provider who is being sued. So, for example, even though neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons may both perform an identical type of spine surgery, the law would prohibit a neurosurgeon from testifying an orthopedist did...

01 July

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Florida Court declares caps on malpractice injury cases unconstitutional

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in medical malpractice

In a much-anticipated decision, the Fourth DCA holds that statutory caps in medical malpractice cases imposed by §768.118, Fla. Stat. (2005) are unconstitutional in medical malpractice injury cases, even when there is only one plaintiff. The court found that the caps violate the equal protection provision of Art. I, §2, Fla. Const. The Florida Supreme Court had previously found damage caps in medical malpractice death cases to be unconstitutional. This is the first appellate court to address whether malpractice caps are constitutional in medical malpractice cases that result in injuries which do not cause the death of the patient. This...

27 June

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Florida Court reverses decision about limiting number of expert witnesses

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in medical malpractice

The 5th District Court of Appeal has ruled that trial judges have the discretion to limit the number of expert witnesses in medical malpractice trials. The Court receded from its earlier ruling in Lake v. Clark, 533 So.2d 797 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), that a trial court may not limit expert witnesses in a malpractice trial. Woodson v. Go, 2015 WL 3903589 (Fla. 5th DCA June 26, 2015)....

22 May

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Supreme Court holds medical malpractice caps not retroactive

Posted by Malpractice Specialists

in medical malpractice

The Florida Supreme Court declined to address the constitutionality of damage caps in injury malpractice cases but did declare that if such caps are constitutional they may not be applied retroactively to an event that occurred prior to the date the malpractice cap statute was enacted by the legislature. The Florida Supreme Court has previously declared that caps on damages in medical malpractice death cases are unconstitutional. Miles v. Weingrad - So.3d ---- 2015 WL 2401261 (Fla. May 21, 2015)....

Florida Supreme Court strikes down an obstetrician’s “mandatory” patient arbitration agreement.

$7.9 million dollar medical malpractice verdict for 77-year-old stroke victim

Congrats to UCF on Their New Teaching Hospital, But….

Payouts Decline for the 15th Straight Year

Jury verdict for patient overturned on appeal because the patient’s expert gave surprise testimony at trial

Appeals court holds that a claim brought against a hospital

Court order reinstating medical malpractice complaint after dismissal

Florida Court declares caps on malpractice injury cases unconstitutional

Florida Court reverses decision about limiting number of expert witnesses

Supreme Court holds medical malpractice caps not retroactive

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