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Tort Reform: "Why not?" I'll admit we need more tort reform if you agree to answer this simple question. "Why?"

By Steve Lombardi

I keep talking about tort reform on this blog. Some people think I'm making good points and they include people associated with medicine who've read what I write and tell me they can't disagree with most of what I've said. One law firm in Atlanta liked it enough to ask for permission to reprint on their law firm's website. That's very flattering. I'm getting feedback from both camps and I like to hear from those who disagree with my point of view. I realize that I may be wrong and like always I agree that society can through legislation do whatever it is their hearts desire; no matter how unreasonable. Society has a way of believing what it wants to believe not necessarily what a good education or the facts tell us about reality. (I must the only one on the planet that realizes, or is willing to admit, Mr. Obama isn't our first black President. In my kindergarten class they taught me mixing white and black doesn't make the color black. Oops! Sorry Mr. President; I'm sure this whole first black President label wasn't missed by you with your Harvard education. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty certain Michelle isn't teaching Sasha and Malia that mixing the colors black and white makes black Sorry girls you can't be the first black U.S. President either. Michelle could, but no other Obama.)

But I'm digressing so allow me to get back on track. A good friend of mine who just happens to be a lawyer sent an email about the medical care he's receiving. He has congestive heart failure has undergone heart surgery and experienced that moment of realizing it may very well be the last breath he would ever take. In those moments just before you go under the knife your view about life gets pretty basic. All that really matters is staring you in the face looking worried and the last things you're thinking of are the things in your bedroom closet or garage.

So this friend is a conservative lawyer who represents large, equally conservative corporations who loathe p.i. lawyers and applaud any type of tort reform that flashes across their radar screen. Over the past months my lawyer friend has become more and more upset with how he's being treated by cardiologists and the dream team that is being squeezed by the hospital system to do more and more for less and less. This is what this conservative, and very nice I might add, lawyer had to say to me.

Say a person undergoes a pulmonary function test. And say that the initial results on the screen show many of the categories of the test in the red (below normal). Now assume that the test results are given to a pulmonologist on a Friday but by the following Thursday no one has a report that they can review and tell the patient what his result mean. Also assume that the patient has reported to his family doctor the previous Wednesday before the Friday test that he was suffering from shortness of breath and fatigue and also assume that these symptoms were reported to this patients cardiologist who can not see the patient until tomorrow (Friday) As an additional fact on Wednesday the patients wife visited the family doctor and asked his two nurses and the doctor why there were no pulmonary test results and the family doctor responded by saying the pulmonologist was probably busy and hadn't had a chance to do a report. Finally, assume that the patient, while at rest, is feeling pressure and discomfort in the chest.

When the patient dies between now and tomorrow morning before he sees his cardiologist how much is the case worth?

Of course my friend is being factitious about wanting to know how much the case is worth. He's more worried about how to get the attention of a medical system that is doing too many other things to deal with him. But what is he saying to us about adopting tort reform and doing away with tort litigation? What, if anything, do we lose?

What he's describing is that he's literally dying of congestive heart failure, is experiencing terrible symptoms that compromise his health and no one seems to care enough or to be able to take the time to deal with simply reading his pulmonary function tests and to write the report needed for the rest of the cardiac team to act. This lawyer isn't a whiner. He's not a bleeding heart liberal and certainly he's not looking to make a fast buck off the 'litigation lottery machine' as some refer to the civil justice system. No what he is doing is complaining, because he's worried about dying in a system that doesn't seem to care. He's voicing his frustration and feelings of panic at being ignored by a system that decries anyone from the outside looking in at why the medical system isn't responsive to patients with serious medical conditions. It's a system that has billions of dollars to build lavish medical facilities that become empty store fronts. It's a system that is bloated like an elephant and builds hospitals that are the equivalent of a medical Taj Mahal. It's a system with wide hallways, coffee bars, deli's, sandwich shops, huge parking ramps, empty offices and meeting rooms. It's a system that hates the civil justice system and the investigative litigation that follows for the purpose of asking the simple question, why.

Does my friend deserve better? Do we deserve better? Are you willing to pay the cost of giving up the sole weapon you have to answer the why question? Because that's what most tort reform does; it does away with the subpoena that digs out of the brick and mortar the records and witnesses that will tell his widow, the answer to her simple question.

'Why?'

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).