A major victory for Maya’s family, their lawyers, and patients everywhere. I cannot overstate how impressive this work is under difficult circumstances.

A Florida jury tacked on $50 million in punitive damages to a roughly $211 million award to the family of Maya Kowalski, the child at the center of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya,” against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital for mistreating Maya to the point that her mother took her own life. Read […]

I Was Afraid This Would Happen

An overlooked aspect of personal injury claims is the stress associated with the litigation, including opening up discovery to the other side and awkward encounters with treaters who are somewhere on the spectrum between skeptical or suspicious and hostile. Especially in serious cases, where the victim constantly in the care of medical professionals. As I […]

Do Qualified Protective Orders Maintain the Privacy of PHI Related to the Claim?

I advise my clients that the pursuit of a medical malpractice claim involves waiving the privacy and confidentiality of the medical issues related to the claim. I think that is customary advice in the legal community. Trying to parse out what may remain confidential, whether you have a “qualified protective order” or not, is an […]

Peer Review Privilege is Boken: we’re going to keep chipping away state by state

#QualityFraud A Pennsylvania appellate court’s recent ruling makes clear that a hospital’s internal documents are generally considered fair game for discovery in medical malpractice suits and the onus is on health care providers to prove otherwise, experts said. Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1723936?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2023-09-21&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0?copied=1

Univ. Of Wash. Hospital Sued Over Allegedly Lost Tumor

I’m curious because the news report doesn’t mention it – wasn’t there a repeat biopsy once they realized the first specimen was lost? “Defendant UW lost the surgically removed tumor prior to conducting the requisite pathological review and left plaintiff without a clear diagnostic or care plan,” according to the complaint seeking medical negligence damages. […]

The Line Between Relevance and Privacy for Plaintiffs Can Be Thin (but still exists in some places)

An Illinois court ruled that a defendant doctor’s legal team could not have access to the plaintiff’s mental health records because they were not relevant to the claims. “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 […]

Hospitals have begun to use the technology to help reduce medical errors and improve patient safety.

Black boxes on airplanes record detailed information about flights. Now, a technology that goes by the same name and captures just about everything that goes on in an operating room during a surgery is making its way into hospitals. Here is the link: Hospital ‘Black Boxes’ Put Surgical Practices Under the Microscope: Hospitals have begun […]

Medical Record Keeping Error

Transparency and patient safety are a problem in health care around the globe – not just in the US. In 2018, the largest peer review in NHS and Northern Ireland’s history identified numerous concerns regarding a neurology practice, including lack of proper clinical investigation, inaccurate diagnoses, poor prescribing practices, poor recording keeping, lack of openness […]

My Dad and I Didn’t Battle The Charles Case With So Many Other Fine Lawyers, Just To See Florida’s Constitution Undone.

Despite our work in Charles versus Baptist, hospital lobbyists keep picking away at the patient safety disclosures voted for by Florida. As noted in a recent news story, the case my office handled established an important precedent (overturning the First DCA in the process). In a key 2017 ruling in a Jacksonville case, the Florida […]