The attorney-client privilege protects private communications between a client and a lawyer. This sensible rule promotes a full and frank discussion so that the client can get the best advice without the interference of prying eyes and ears. It assumes the communications are strictly private – not in the presence of anyone other than the client and lawyer. It also assumes no disclosures to third parties that would waive the privilege – by the client or the lawyer. Here’s an example to illustrate the point: Let’s say that early in my career handling plaintiffs’ medical malpractice claims, a client drove his car through a hospital’s glass front. The fact of the accident is not attorney-client privileged. I could write about the fact that my client was found in his car, half in and half out of the hospital window, without violating my ethical duty to the client. However, my private discussions with my client (before and after) would be privileged, and I couldn’t share them on my blog.

Work-product privilege protects our thoughts, impressions, and strategies in the case—as long as they are not shared in public or with any unauthorized third party (authorized third parties, for instance, would be the many vendors used to help work the case, and the privilege binds them). Staying with our example, my thoughts and opinions about my client ending up in his car half in and half out of the hospital plate glass window would be privileged unless and until I made those thoughts or opinions public as part of my client’s case. Included is any discussion of how or why my client told me he was found in his car, half in and half out of the hospital.

Generally speaking (and hypotheticals aside), my job is to pursue civil remedies to obtain justice for my clients. The most effective way to do this is to take steps toward a jury trial. The right to a jury trial is the foundation of every settlement and verdict obtained. The Seventh Amendment to our Constitution is dishonored whenever the right to a jury trial is impaired or legislated out of existence.

The Seventh Amendment right to jury trial comes from the Magna Carta – the King’s deal to avoid violence with his subjects by guaranteeing certain rights, including the right to jury trial. Causing violence to property and persons is always counterproductive to pursuing a jury trial. But that assumes the existence of a meaningful right to a jury trial, as guaranteed by our natural rights under the Constitution.

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Under the law, punitive damages cannot be levied against a defendant if they’d already been hit with punitive damages for the same conduct, provided the court determines they have already been punished enough, according to the opinion. Sommers had argued the court was wrong not to make this determination, the panel said.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1810847?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2024-03-07&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=4?copied=1

You can read about my experience litigating punitive damages here.

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… one juror had gone home, looked up the warnings on his EpiPen, and brought that information to deliberations. The trial court first granted, then on reconsideration denied, the motion, prompting the appeal.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1804861?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2024-02-22&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=7?copied=1

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A Washington federal jury has sided with a Johnson & Johnson-owned medical device maker in a product liability trial in Seattle, agreeing that the manufacturer was not liable for the injuries a Washington man claimed he suffered due to a defective knee replacement.

The jury delivered the verdict at about 4 p.m. Friday, after four days of testimony and roughly 50 minutes of deliberations, rejecting plaintiff Derrick C. Bosley Sr.’s claims that orthopedics maker DePuy negligently designed the Attune Knee System device that was implanted in his left knee in 2014 and later had to be removed and replaced.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1733251?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2023-10-17&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0?copied=1

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Here is a link to the reported appeals decision in my case.

These are difficult cases, trying for all involved. Press attention can help but can also add to the emotional impact on the parties.

The highly anticipated trial in Sarasota will center on the role of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in the separation of then-10-year-old Maya from her mother, Beata Kowalski, who, after nearly 90 days of being unable to see her daughter because of suspicions that she was making Maya’s condition worse, took her own life in January 2017. The Netflix documentary was released in June.

“Our trial strategy is simple,” the Kowalskis’ attorney Greg Anderson told Law360. “If the truth comes in and I am able to put my case in, I feel very confident that a jury will agree that Maya Kowalski was abused and that Johns Hopkins made an intentional decision to try to force the Kowalskis to agree with their misdiagnosis.”

But the hospital is expected to present evidence at trial that Maya, who arrived at the St. Petersburg hospital on Oct. 7, 2016, significantly underweight and in a wheelchair, did well under the hospital’s care and is living a normal life today. Johns Hopkins maintains that its doctors did their duty as mandatory reporters to report their suspicions of medical abuse to the Florida Department of Children and Families, and it was that agency and a judge who did the investigation and decided to temporarily remove Maya from her parents’ custody.

These thoughts from the Plaintiff’s lawyer ring true based upon my experience.

Anderson, the Kowalskis’ attorney, said he is confident about the facts and the law as it stands applied to the facts, although he says he is concerned about certain pretrial orders excluding evidence that could “cut down the case to something that has no resemblance to what actually happened.”

“If we’re allowed to get the facts in, if the jury’s allowed to hear what actually happened to these folks, I feel very confident,” he said.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1721301?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2023-09-14&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=3?copied=1

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“We acknowledged that ‘the Medical Malpractice Act changed the law such that an interlocutory remedy for parties facing claims that fail to satisfy its pre-suit requirements is warranted,’” the court wrote in the rule-change order. “Accordingly, we now amend Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3) to provide for interlocutory review of nonfinal orders that deny a motion to dismiss on the basis of the qualifications of a corroborating witness under subsections 766.102(5)-(9), Florida Statutes.”

Florida Supreme Court Allows Interlocutory Appeals of Pre-Suit Expert Qualifications

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An Arizona appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit alleging a urologist negligently prescribed an antibiotic that caused harmful side effects to a patient, saying medical expert testimony was not required because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a “black box” warning about the drug.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1680721?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2023-05-24&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=5?copied=1

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“From the limited record, Dr. Rao practices at a clinic that specialized in lung issues. Plaintiff was there presumably seeking treatment for lung issues. Nowhere in the 18-count complaint do the allegations even remotely touch upon any mental health conditions, and we fail to see how Ursitti’s purported depression and anxiety would impact a failure to diagnose lung cancer,” said the opinion, penned by Justice Eileen O’Neill Burke.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1606489/doc-can-t-use-patient-s-mental-health-records-in-suit?copied=1

The post The Line Between Relevance and Privacy for Plaintiffs Can Be Thin (but still exists in some places) appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

In Aspen Amer., Landstar, the broker, hired a carrier to haul a load for its shipper customer but was alleged to have dispatched the load to a fraudster who stole the goods. The shipper’s insurance carrier brought a negligence claim against Landstar in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. The Court held that the claim was preempted by the FAAA, which the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

Here’s a link to the story

11th Circuit Rules Negligence Claim Against Broker Preempted, Creating Circuit Split

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Two nursing school operators in the Fort Lauderdale area have fessed up to peddling fake diplomas to thousands of students who could then avoid completing a rigorous program before taking licensing exams in what prosecutors say was a multimillion-dollar racket stretching from South Florida to New York.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article274207135.html#storylink=cpy

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