A 59-year-old man lumbers through a junkyard he helps manage; he bumps into a desk and the man is almost blind in his right eye and has trouble with depth perception and peripheral vision.
This unfortunate man blames a doctor for a botched retina reattachment operation in August 2007. But lawyers tell him it is economically unfeasible to litigate his complicated case, or that time limitations are an issue.
For that, he blames medical malpractice reforms of the 2004 Nevada Legislature.
“With this new malpractice law in place, I cannot even get a lawyer to go after who is responsible for what happened,” the Las Vegas resident said. “There is hardly any protection for the consumer any more. Now everything is in favor of doctors.”
Voters overwhelmingly approved Question 3 in 2004. Physicians called it the “Keep Our Doctors In Nevada” initiative.
Insurance companies profit. They don’t have to make large pay outs.
The problem is the cap of $350,000 on damages for pain and suffering in all cases.
Children, homemakers, seniors and people who are able to work despite injury have no loss of future earnings to calculate. Essentially, any malpractice awards they get would come out of the $350,000 allocated for pain and suffering, a sum divided between the attorney and the client.
The reform also cut from two years to one the time limit for filing malpractice claims.
If you or a family member have been injured as a result of the fault of someone else; by negligence, slip and fall, car accident, medical malpractice, trucking accident, drunk driving, bad product etc then please contact the Doctor Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik of Southlake, Texas. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.
Legal Analysis: There is a tension between frivolous lawsuits affecting doctors and tort reform where there are mandatory caps which are insufficient to compensate the victim.
As mentioned, folks who are not working, the retired and kids only get the cap in any lawsuit, only after proving their case in court. Our system is designed to help the victim and the jury is the best judge of that; caps are unconstitutional. There has to be a better way than caps to compensate the victim in these tragic cases.
Here in Texas the cap is $250,000 for pain and suffering. It can take $50,000-$100,000 to develop a case to trial. This expense comes out of the award and after the attorney and expenses are paid out; there is little left for the victim after a stressful 2-3 years fighting the case.