Three-strikes for doctors in Florida.

• Position: Trends And Transitions

Florida voters approved a three-strikes law in November unlike any other state's: a measure aimed not at killers or thieves but at doctors who foul up.

The newly approved amendment to the Florida Constitution would automatically revoke the medical license of any doctor hit with three malpractice judgments. The ramifications of the measure, which was supported by lawyers, could be huge.

Legal experts say it could prompt a flood of malpractice suits. Doctors say it will scare some physicians away from Florida while forcing others to reach quick malpractice settlements to avoid a "strike."

"It has branded the state as probably the most unfriendly state for physicians," said Dr. Robert Yelverton, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Tampa.

The three-strikes law is just one salvo in a fierce battle between doctors and trial lawyers playing out across the country and in Congress. While several state lawmakers have taken steps to limit malpractice awards, the fight is especially intense in Florida, where the cost of malpractice insurance runs higher than in most other states.

Doctors put their own malpractice measure on the Florida ballot in November, limiting how much of a malpractice award a lawyer can take as a fee. Such limits are already in place, but the amendment, which also passed, further reduces the lawyers' percentage.

Doctors claim that with less chance for a big payday, lawyers will be more selective about which cases they take.

Lance Block, a lawyer who makes his living primarily by representing malpractice victims, said the doctors' campaign to limit legal fees was motivated purely by enmity. "I don't think there's any question that the purpose of this amendment is to drive lawyers away from medical-negligence cases," he said.

Lester Brickman, a professor of legal ethics at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, said the lawyers "trumped the doctors" with the three-strikes amendment, because lawyers will rush to sue in the...