Four hundred forty thousand people die every year from preventable medical errors. That’s right; medical malpractice kills almost half a million people a year.
Want to know something else? In most states, including North Carolina, the doctors and hospitals can get away with it with no accountability. Recent changes to North Carolina Medical Malpractice Law have almost stopped all medical malpractice in this state.
Hurdles like having to try the case twice, once on liability and once on damages, have made them too expensive to pursue.
Capping non-economic loss like pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life has significantly reduced the potential recovery so that few cases are worth pursuing. Because of the artificial caps, most insurance companies would rather go to trial and gamble than pay a claim they know they should pay. So, cases that I took several years ago I turn away now.
In the past, we would be reviewing twenty or thirty cases at any one time and have four to six we would actively be handling. Now I have one active and two or three to consider. Your legislators decided to pay back doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies for all the money they gave to support their political campaigns by protecting them from the harm they do to you. Wake up and require your legislators to be accountable to you, not big business.
Amazingly, we use the same rules in civil court for everything from real estate cases, motor vehicle cases, divorce, legal malpractice, everything EXCEPT medical malpractice. Med Mal has its own unique rules because the medical community pays the most money to the legislatures. Money buys you special treatment under the law. WAKE UP!!!!
