Plaintiff

BACKGROUND: The nature of lawsuits involving interventional radiologists (IR) are not well understood. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the causes of action underlying medical malpractice lawsuits related to interventional radiologists, and characterize the factors associated and their outcomes METHODS: Two large legal databases were utilized to search for U.S. legal cases in which there were jury awards and settlements involving interventional radiologists in the United States...

Medical opinions are often essential evidence in criminal cases but relatively little is known about the factors that impact forensic doctors' decision making. This research examines the role and impact of having an alternative hypothesis while forming a medical opinion. A scenario-based experiment with forensic doctors (n = 20) was conducted. In two out of three scenarios, the existence of alternative hypotheses impacted the actual opinions reached, the confidence in the judgments and the perceived consistency with the plaintiff hypothesis...

Can individuals with a highly sensitive temperament recover in tort for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED)? In 2019, an article in the University of Memphis Law Review raised this question, referring to the "Highly Sensitive Person" (HSP) construct in psychology and asking whether the IIED tort's 'reasonable person' standard discriminates against highly sensitive plaintiffs. Following up on that discussion, the present article considers how the law of IIED has historically treated plaintiffs with diagnosed psychiatric vulnerabilities that are either known or unknown to the defendant...

UNLABELLED: The use of photography in plastic surgery has become standard of practice in recent years. Patient photographs have diverse utility and can be used to visualize medical progression, and as an educational and marketing tool. With increased publication of patient photographs outside the healthcare records, it is important to understand patient privacy rights and how they pertain to images. Additionally, it is valuable to understand the legal consequences associated with dissemination of patient photographs without proper consent...

Interest and uptake of science and medicine peer-reviewed literature by readers outside of a paper's topical subject, field or even discipline is ever-expanding. While the application of knowledge from one field or discipline to others can stimulate innovative solutions to problems facing modern society, it is also fraught with danger for misuse. In the practice of law in the United States, academic papers are submitted to the courts as evidence in personal injury litigation from both the plaintiff (complainant) and defendant...

OBJECTIVES: In this study, we aimed to identify the most frequently reported claims after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and the reasons put forward by the plaintiffs. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between January 2011 and December 2020, data of a total of 74 cases (21 males, 53 females; mean age: 53.7±12.8 years; range, 29 to 83 years) obtained from the Turkish Forensic Medicine Institute were retrospectively analyzed. Claims for litigation, demographic data, data regarding the identity of the accused and the hospital setting were recorded...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Medical-legal claims for malpractice relating to the use of alteplase for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) are usually for failure to treat rather than for complications. The advent of mechanical thrombectomy (MT) as a standard of AIS treatment has added a new dimension to the medical-legal landscape as there is a need for the delivery of a higher level of care creating the potential for delays and errors associated with such treatment. Information on causes of malpractice related to mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is currently lacking...

Social workers are sometimes named as defendants in malpractice lawsuits. These lawsuits allege negligence, specifically that social work defendants owed a duty to the plaintiff, breached this duty, and the defendant's actions caused harm. Plaintiffs in litigation cases typically allege that social workers violated or failed to meet prevailing standards of care in the profession. It is essential that social workers understand the legal concept of standard of care and its implications for professional practice...

This RCD analyzes the Alabama Supreme Court's recent answer to two certified questions sent to the court from the Eleventh Circuit. The questions involved whether a pharmaceutical company's duty to warn included a duty to provide instructions about how to properly mitigate for warned of risks, and if the pharmaceutical company had such a duty could a plaintiff recover if their physician would have prescribed the same drug but just changed their monitoring scheme. The Alabama Supreme Court answered both questions in the affirmative, expanding the causation standard in failure to warn claims...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The United States (US) currently faces a medical malpractice crisis, and a survey done in 2006 informed that 63% of urologists faced an average of 2.1 medical malpractice lawsuits. Surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is performed by 95% of US urologists. Hence, we postulated that these procedures might be responsible for a substantial number of medical malpractice lawsuits. We examined claims related to BPH surgery in various US courts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected from Westlaw and LexisNexis databases using the keywords "benign prostatic hyperplasia," "enlarged prostate," "surgery," and "malpractice" to search for cases from the entire US from January 2000 to December 2021...

INTRODUCTION: 5α-reductase inhibitors (5ARI) are commonly prescribed medications. There is ongoing controversy about the adverse events of these medications. The aim of this study is to characterize lawsuits in Canada involving medical complications of 5ARIs use. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Legal cases were queried from CanLII. Cases were included if they involved a party taking a 5ARI who alleged an adverse event. Relevant full cases were retained, and pertinent characteristics were extracted with the help of a legal expert...

This article examines the United Kingdom Supreme Court decision in Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14. The case centred on whether damages could be awarded for the cost of a commercial surrogacy arrangement in California, following clinical negligence by the hospital that left the plaintiff unable to carry her own children. After examination of this case, the article outlines and compares the United Kingdom and Australian surrogacy laws. It then discusses how a similar case would be decided in Australia and argues that the result would be the same in some Australian States...

Millions of dollars are spent annually in private litigation against jails. This article analyzes a novel dataset developed from dockets and reports of cases filed against jails by the estates of individuals who died in jail custody. The total amount of plaintiffs' awards represented in the sample was over $292,234,224. Cases attributing the cause of death to officer use of force had the highest average award ($2,243,079). Our findings suggest that suicide is still the most common cause of death for people in jail custody...

The tenets of a lawsuit are a deviation from the applicable standard of care that caused an injury. Elements must be addressed, including duty of care, deviation or breach of the duty to care, evidence the breach caused injury, and the identification of associated damages. Steps include consultation by a plaintiff with the attorney, pertinent records and imaging studies, and a review of the material by an expert. A complaint is filed and served upon each party. The defendant(s) must respond typically within 20 days...

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the incidence of litigation due to using or foregoing methylprednisolone, naloxone, or tirilazad for treatment of acute spinal cord injury (ASCI) through querying the Westlaw and VerdictSearch databases. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: There is historic controversy regarding the use of intravenous steroids for treatment of ASCI. Many highlight that methylprednisolone continues to be used for ASCI treatment mainly as a defensive medicine tactic due to the fear of malpractice litigation...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the characteristics of alleged medical malpractice litigation involving spine surgery in Beijing between 2013 and 2018. METHODS: Two online legal databases, Wusong and Weike, were queried for court verdicts involving spine surgery from January 2013 to December 2018 in Beijing. For all included cases, data pertaining to defendants, plaintiffs, case outcomes, allegations, and verdicts were abstracted, and descriptive analyses were performed...

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to determine the most common allegations for malpractice litigation brought against orthopaedic surgeons for oncologic matters and the resulting verdicts. METHODS: The Westlaw Legal research database was queried for malpractice cases filed against orthopaedic surgeons for oncologic matters in the United States after 1980. Plaintiff demographics, state of filing, allegations, and outcomes of lawsuits were recorded and reported accordingly...

INTRODUCTION: Though all physicians are at risk for medical malpractice litigation, those in surgical specialties, particularly neurosurgeons, are at increased risk. Because intracranial hemorrhages are a life-threatening and commonly misdiagnosed condition, the aim of this study is to identify and increase awareness of factors associated with litigation in cases of intracranial hemorrhages. METHODS: The online legal database Westlaw was utilized to query public litigation cases related to the management of intracranial hemorrhages between 1985 and 2020...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Approaches to management of intracranial aneurysms are inconsistent, in part due to apprehension relating to potential malpractice claims. The purpose of this article was to review the causes of action underlying medical malpractice lawsuits related to the diagnosis and management of intracranial aneurysms and to identify the factors associated and their outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We consulted 2 large legal databases in the United States to search for cases in which there were jury awards and settlements related to the diagnosis and management of patients with intracranial aneurysms in the United States...

BACKGROUND: 7.4% of physicians in the United States face risk of undergoing medical malpractice litigations each year. Breast reduction surgeries are performed often, but specific factors of breast reduction malpractice litigations associated with the outcome and indemnity payments to plaintiffs are unknown. METHODS: Using the Westlaw legal database, we analyzed plaintiff and defendant characteristics, alleged reasons for malpractice, case outcomes, and payments to plaintiffs among medical malpractice lawsuits involving breast reductions with final jury verdicts or settlements using logistic regressions...