Point/counterpoint
| Jurisdiction | Utah,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 1 No. 3 Pg. 24 |
| Pages | 24 |
| Publication year | 1996 |
PROPOSED CHANGES IN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW
Physician "Reforms" of the Medical Malpractice Laws in Utah — Don't Confuse Them with Facts, Their Minds Are Made Up
Ralph L Dewsnup, J.
So-called "reforms" in the law of medical malpractice are not doctors versus lawyers issues. Patients are the ones who are affected by the changes in law that have made it more difficult and expensive, and which may eventually make it impossible, to sue doctors. Such laws have been advocated by the medical industry (doctors and their insurers), as ways to rein in the cost of, and improve access to, health care. Well orchestrated public relations campaigns have turned public opinion against the victims of medical malpractice and cast the medical industry itself in the role of victim. Since all citizens who receive medical care are potential victims of medical negligence, further "reforms" in the tort system involving medical malpractice should be care-fully scrutinized and analyzed before people realize, too late, that they have been sold out.
Just about anyone's life can be ruined by negligent medical care. Just ask the man whose good leg was amputated by an inattentive physician; or the family of the woman who received a fatal dose of chemotherapy that was four times the desired amount; or the woman who was seriously burned and rendered sterile when she was negligently swabbed with a concentrated acid solution 100 times stronger than the one she was supposed to have received; or the family of the man who was negligently given incorrect doses of blood thinners that killed him after he developed an uncontrollable brain hemorrhage. None of these people ever suspected that they would be victims of negligent medical care. It is important to remember that medical malpractice can happen to the people who least expect it.
The tort system has always operated on the general premise that when a wrong is committed by one person against another, there should be accountability for the resulting injuries and damages. That philosophy sits well with people's basic sense of fairness and justice. But it has been under attack for the past twenty years by the medical and insurance industries, that seem single-minded in their efforts to avoid responsibility and accountability to the very people they are supposed to serve. The erosion of the rights of victims of medical malpractice has been relentless, yet so gradual that most people do not realize how disparate the legal treatment of this class of tort victims has become.
In Utah, victims of medical malpractice have been handed a shorter (two year) statute of limitations (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-4); a four year statute of repose (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-4); the elimination of the collateral source rule (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-4.5); a requirement that they give their doctors advance notice of their intent to sue (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-8); restrictions on their ability to claim they did not give informed consent to treatment (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-5); the preclusion of their ability to bring claims for breach of oral promise, contract, warranty or guarantee (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-6); a prohibition against including specified damage amounts in their complaints (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-7); caps on non-economic damages (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-7.1); ceilings on attorneys' fees (Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-7.5); a mandatory deferral of payments on...
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