14.2.03

Wisconsin personal injury lawyers and Wisconsin attorneys know this, but another outstanding point made at the TomPain.com website - www.tompain.com is that the real target of all the lies and deception from malpractice insurers and doctors' strikes at their behest are the juries in malpractice cases and injury lawsuits in general. Its "Target Juries" states:

"Have you checked your auto, homeowners, or business insurance premiums lately? They’re way up. Why? Because insurance companies, which like to gamble in the stock and bond markets, have taken a drubbing. They’re trying to recoup by boosting premiums.
Insurers have jacked up medical malpractice insurance rates, too. Doctors are howling. In headline-grabbing strikes across the nation, they proclaim they can’t practice medicine without affordable insurance. True enough.
But instead of fingering the real culprits -- insurance companies -- doctors and the American Medical Association have joined insurers in blaming injured patients who file supposedly "frivolous" lawsuits and jurors they say are eager to make huge malpractice awards.
Their solution -- limiting the discretion of jurors by capping jury awards, so-called "tort reform" -- is as fraudulent as the manufactured crisis it’s supposed to address.
Donald J. Zuk, CEO of a major malpractice insurer, has said as much. Commenting on rising malpractice premiums, Zuk told The Wall Street Journal last year, "I don’t like to hear insurance-company executives say it’s the tort system -- it’s self-inflicted."
In fact, when malpractice premiums spiked in the 1980s, many states capped jury awards. That hasn’t held rates down. (California passed insurance reform in 1988 -- that worked.) And if discouraging "frivolous" lawsuits is the goal, why cap damages in successful suits, those that, by definition, are not frivolous?
The current insurance "crisis" is, in fact, just the latest push in a decades-long effort to pass "tort reform" -- a campaign by corporations, doctors and insurance companies to insulate themselves from legal accountability by tying jurors hands.
"The people pushing tort reform have used campaign contributions and lobbying to compromise elected officials and regulators," says one consumer advocate. "Juries are the last line of protection for consumers. Jurors don’t take campaign contributions. They can’t be lobbied. What tort reformers fear most is 12 people they can’t control.""


12.2.03

Wisconsin attorneys practicing medical malpractice, tort and wrongful death litigation may have perspectives different from those on a national level. I encourage you to get some thought provoking insights at TOMPAINE.com - A Public Interest Journal. One article there talk about how the current insurance crisis is just the latest push in a long effort to pass more and more tort deform so corporations, doctors and insurance companies can make more money insulating themselves from accountability and justice. Another explains how 30 states have tried tort, medical malpractice and wrongful death "reforms" and it hasn't held down malpractice or insurance premiums yet.

Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyer