The New England Journal of Medicine released a new study in today’s issue, Malpractice Risk According to Physician Specialty, which concluded:

There are few recent estimates on the likelihood of malpractice claims and the size of payments according to physician specialty. Using physician-level malpractice claims from a nationwide liability insurer, we found substantial variability

It’s conventional wisdom among trial lawyers and insurance lawyers that few plaintiffs are as sympathetic as a brain-damaged baby. The baby plainly did nothing to contribute to their harm, but has nonetheless been deprived of many of the basic joys of their infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It’s thus presumed that, if a jury finds

Update, September 7, 2012: More than a year ago, I wrote “It’s possible KV will sue the FDA over [the decision not to go after compounding pharmacies] — arguing, in essence, that the FDA is disobeying its own statutes and regulations, and thus in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act …” That happened in

It may sound strange coming from me, but I don’t like suing people, particularly not in personal injury or professional liability actions where the real target of the suit is not even the company that employed the negligent person, but really the employer’s insurance company.

But I often end up suing everyone I can, including

Of the over one million people injured or killed annually by preventable medical malpractice, only a fraction have their claims reviewed by the legal system. We can’t be sure how small that fraction is — since the health care industry spends millions of dollars every year convincing Congress to frustrate error-reporting — but we know

Some of the largest cases involve medical malpractice cerebral palsy. A recent medical malpractice case from the bought-yourself-an-appeal department:

Citing multiple trial errors, a New Jersey appeals court has reversed an $18.9 million verdict against an obstetrician whose delay in ordering a Caesarean delivery a jury found to have caused cerebral palsy in

Continuing on from our discussion yesterday, medical malpractice, like any other negligence tort, is proven by showing:

(1) the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff to act a certain way,

(2) that the defendant breached that duty,

(3) that the defendant’s breach caused the plaintiff harm and

(4) that the harm caused is

John Edwards’ political career is over — and rightly so — but he’s still a punching-bag for the “tort reform” crowd.

He shouldn’t be. Here’s an example.

Stephen Bainbridge leaves his expertise and reveals himself at least a careless speaker, if not an outright fool. After Eric Johnson at PrawfsBlog discusses teaching a Torts class