Ask a Medical Malpractice (Defense) Lawyer

[TheRealJoeFish]

Are you involved in civil and criminal cases?

Just civil. I've never wanted to do anything criminal. My firm is all civil, as far as I know; I think if the hospitals had anything criminal they would get different lawyers who specialize in that.

Are/will you be involved in cases of medical product liability?

Probably not, which is a shame, because I think that would be very interesting. Later in my career I could get more of an opportunity to choose what I do, and something like this would be intriguing to me.

Have there been cases where the accused malpractice/negligence has been against hospital policy vs individual actions?

I haven't encountered any. You occasionally get cases of doctors or nurses behaving badly (usually being jerks to patients or not following rules repeatedly) and then when they get fired they sue.

Or, do you mean, someone sues and doesn't say "your doctor screwed up" but instead says "your policy is negligent"? That happens a lot; it's a special kind of case called corporate negligence. There are a few ways it can work, but it often comes down to "you didn't have a policy in place to prevent X" or "your policy about X was vague enough that someone could follow it but still not ensure patient safety." The standards to bring that case are tricky; basically, you need to show not only that the policy was bad but that the hospital knew or should have known it was bad.

How many do you see that are medical misadventure vs malpractice?

Hmm... I'm not really familiar with this terminology (misadventure). It's not really used in the USA. Elaboration plz?