If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say….You Probably Shouldn’t Post It!
8/22/18
By: Shaun Daugherty & Samantha Skolnick
Mothers all over the world have admonished their children: “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” It may lose something when translated into some obscure dialects, but the …
Georgia Prescription Drug Monitoring Program – The Last Deadline Approaches
6/27/18
By: Shaun Daugherty
For those of you that have not been residing off planet these last few years, you know that there is a lot of coverage of the opioid “crisis” across the United States. Many states have taken steps …
Ordinarily, Is It Professional Negligence? Georgia Supreme Court Thinks So In $22 Million Reversal
4/17/18
By: Shaun Daugherty
The Georgia appellate courts have addressed the issues between claims of ordinary and professional negligence in medical malpractice cases for a number of years. The standards for liability are distinctly different, but in certain factual scenarios there …
Arbitration Clauses Are Only As Good As the Signatory’s Power to Bind, Obviously
11/29/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
A name is just a name when it was found on the signature line of an arbitration agreement between a Tift County Georgia nursing home and one of its residents. A U.S. District Judge in the Middle …
Medical Expert Witness Reports in California: When to Produce Them…and When Not To
9/20/17
By: Jon H. Tisdale
We are all familiar with the mandate that a defense medical examination report, the so-called “IME”, must be produced upon written request by the patient’s attorney. California law requires production 30 days after the demand (or …
Informed Consent! What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing. Say It Again.
8/4/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
Ok. That may be a bit extreme. After all, it is in the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics and the concept is addressed in most medical professional organizations guidelines in one form or another. …
The Supreme Court Buys Into Argument that Plaintiffs Should Not Be Permitted to Forum Shop
6/22/17
By: Kristian Smith & Robyn Flegal
The U.S. Supreme Court decided one of the most important mass tort/product liability decisions ever Monday, effectively ending forum shopping or “litigation tourism.” In its 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. …
Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down Damage Caps in Med Mal Cases
6/9/17
By: Melissa A. Santalone
Almost a year to the day after hearing oral argument on the case of North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, the Florida Supreme Court finally issued its decision striking caps on noneconomic damages in medical …
Pharmaceutical Company Held Liable for Lawyer’s Suicide
4/27/17
By: Kristian N. Smith
A federal jury in Illinois recently held GlaxoSmithKline liable for the death of a Reed Smith LLP partner, Stewart Dolin. The jury found that the generic version of GSK’s Paxil caused Mr. Dolin to take his …
Ethical Code Does Not Prevent Expert Testimony
4/24/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
In a recent, factually interesting decision by an Illinois Court of Appeal, a defense verdict in a dental malpractice case was overturned for a variety of reasons related primarily to the defendant’s expert’s use of skulls during …
Federal Court Rejects Jane Doe’s Wrongful Conception Claims Too
3/21/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
It made headlines when several families around the county sued Atlanta based sperm bank Xytec Corp. for claims that they were lied to regarding the specific characteristics of a donor that had been responsible for the birth …
How Fine is the Line Between Medical Malpractice and Life in Prison?
2/22/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
It was all over the major news networks and the print media. On Monday, February 21, 2017, a Dallas, Texas jury sentenced Dr. Christopher Duntsch, neurosurgeon, to life in prison for a “botched surgery.” While he was …