To date, fifty-two companies have filed bankruptcy and a thousand more with even the tiniest association with asbestos have been targeted by the trial lawyers. Kimberly-Clark and International Paper Company have been targeted because there were trace amounts of the stuff in Kleenex and writing paper. There is no evidence that blowing your nose or writing a letter to mom causes the asbestos-related cancer, but these companies have deep pockets. In the medical malpractice arena, there are very serious implications for the surgeon. If the youngster has a scar and his schoolmates begin calling him Tarzan or Scarface, he may be in for some trouble of his own. I can hear the questions from the trial lawyer now. “Doctor, would you please tell the jury the extent of your training in tiger bite surgical care.” The doctor will look at the jury with a blank stare when he realizes that his degrees from Harvard and UCLA do not provide enough weight to save his hide. The lawyer proceeds, “Doctor, you stated that the child was very lucky. You implied to the family and public that you had experience in cat injuries when in fact you have never treated any other patient for the same cat cranial claw injuries, have you doctor?” Finally, “Doctor, do you have cats at home? I’ll bet you have a Russian wolfhound. Doctor, I don’t think you have the professional or personal qualifications to have treated Johnny for his injuries. I have an expert from the Barnum and Bailey Circus who is willing to testify that the scars were quite avoidable.” The jury will deliberate and give Johnny $20 million dollars. The lawyers will have stressed that the boy had been in the school play and could have become the next Brad Pitt. The economic losses due to the scars will have been taken into very serious consideration by the jury. The insurance company will pay the award. In the medical malpractice arena, just as in the product liability arena, the building industry and the pharmaceutical industry, the law is supposed to protect the public from wrongful acts and injury. Doctors have no quarrel with the process as it protects them as well as other citizens, but when tort process is so abused and adversely manipulated by greed, everyone suffers. Just as businesses close because they cannot afford the costs of lawsuits and drug companies never release life-saving drugs for fear of having to pay outrageous amounts for adverse outcomes, doctors close their offices and leave town because of the same high costs of malpractice insurance. In Las Vegas, seventy-six percent of the obstetricians have been sued; forty percent have been sued three or more times. No, Nevada is not a haven for bad baby doctors. It is a haven for trial lawyers seeking to make a great deal of money. Similarly, not all the bad neurosurgeons live in Mississippi. The neurosurgeons have simply been sued quite regularly whenever an outcome is less than desired. Medicine has risks and doctors are prime targets in the “lottery atmosphere” that has taken hold in all of the tort law. During the past eight years, the average malpractice court judgment has risen three hundred percent to $3.5 million dollars. Trial lawyers admit with a smile that doctors today are not three times worse than they were in 1994. Insurance companies are running out of money and the largest firms are leaving the industry. Recently, The St. Paul Cos.Inc., the nation’s second largest malpractice insurer, abandoned this line of insurance. It lost $985 million dollars in 2001. Forty thousand doctors have had to find coverage elsewhere. They can usually find a company that will insure them but the costs are high enough that many are closing offices, retiring early, finding other jobs, or seeking to resume practice in states with more reasonable malpractice climates and rates. Note that the doctor did not become a better surgeon, he simply moved to a part of the country where sanity is more likely. Doctors do not seek to be free of their legal responsibilities to patients; rather they seek some relief from the sky-rocking costs of malpractice insurance that threaten the entire practice of medicine and the quality and availability of services that the community has taken for granted for a generation. In this respect doctors are no different than the other targets of the tort mess that exists in the justice system. They are looking for help to fix this broken part of the legal system that deals with wrongful acts and injury. The trial lawyers say the system is fine and justice is being done. Many legislators are or were trial lawyers and take the same stand stating that there is no problem here. That money rather than justice is at the very heart of the problem is obvious in the advice given by some trial lawyers: Drop your malpractice insurance and you won’t be sued because there is not enough in it for the lawyer. If some attorneys knew as much about medicine as they do about creative legal manipulation, they would know that doctors require malpractice coverage to have hospital privileges. Not much heart surgery or brain surgery is being done in offices - yet.

What can be done? While doctors visit their state capitols to meet with legislators, the public actually has a much larger role to play. When you hear the term “Tort Reform,” recognize that it refers to changing the legal system so that you may enjoy the protections you deserve while limiting unreasonable awards so that you can be assured of care in your community. Just as you seek high quality physicians to guard your health, seek and vote for high quality legislators willing to protect your healthcare system by sponsoring and voting for tort reform in this state. It would also be a good idea to avoid having Tigers in the school lunch line. Tigers and lawyers know a good meal when they see one.