Philadelphia Top Injury Lawyer Blog

As a Pennsylvania medical malpractice lawyer, I was interested to see an article about a new model for settling medical malpractice cases that could someday be used in our state. According to a June 12 article in the New York Times, the state of New York is trying out a system of early settlement talks in medical malpractice cases, with the goal of ending cases earlier and limiting the cost of malpractice liability insurance. In this system, judges with an above-average amount of medical knowledge are assigned to malpractice cases, then hold multiple early settlement conferences. A nurse is assigned to help the judge understand the medical issues involved, and all of the attorneys are required to have the authority to settle. Early statistics show that the judge handling the case settles 20 percent more cases than his peers.

The program is thus far being implemented in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, with Buffalo courts likely to take it up this fall. It reverses the usual practice in malpractice cases, in which settlement conferences often come very late in the litigation process, close to trial. Instead, the program gathers attorneys for all of the parties in a room with a knowledgeable judge, who mediates the settlement conference with information about what juries are likely to do and the size of past settlements. New York officials say the approach limits the cost of litigation, to the parties as well as the state. Injured people tend to get less money than they would in a jury trial, the article said, but they may get that money sooner than in a traditional case. The federal government hopes the program could spread to other states as a way to limit the cost of malpractice cases, and estimates savings as high as $1 billion a year.

Because I represent injured patients and their families as a Pennsylvania birth injury lawyer, I think it's best to be cautious about anything that limits patients' ability to be fairly compensated. Nearly all medical malpractice cases are about an injury that killed or permanently injured the patient, so it's very important that these injured people get the money they need to adapt to their permanently changed lives. This system wouldn't necessarily stop that from happening, but by taking the decision out of a jury's hands and into a back room, it invites pressure and decisions with no accountability. Certainly, injured parties should retain their ability to choose a jury trial if they prefer one. As a Pennsylvania medical negligence lawyer, I hope lawmakers give this system a lot of time to create data with which to make a well informed decision before we try it here in Philadelphia.