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"Sorry" Is Never Enough: How State Apology Laws Fail To Reduce Medical Malpractice Liability Risk, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael, R. Lawrence Van Horn
"Sorry" Is Never Enough: How State Apology Laws Fail To Reduce Medical Malpractice Liability Risk, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael, R. Lawrence Van Horn
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Based on case studies indicating that apologies from physicians to patients can promote healing, understanding, and dispute resolution, 38 states have sought to reduce litigation and medical malpractice liability by enacting apology laws. Apology laws facilitate apologies by making them inadmissible in subsequent malpractice trials.
The underlying assumption regarding the potential efficacy of these laws is that, after receiving an apology, patients will be less likely to pursue a malpractice claim and will be more likely to settle those claims that are filed. However, once a patient has been made aware that the physician has committed a medical error, the …
Medical Malpractice Reform: What Works And What Doesn't, W. Kip Viscusi
Medical Malpractice Reform: What Works And What Doesn't, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Concerns with medical malpractice liability costs have been a principal factor leading states to adopt a series of tort liability reforms. Medical malpractice premiums have been declining, creating less of a cost-based impetus for additional reforms. The most consistent empirical evidence indicating statistically significant effects of medical malpractice reforms has been for caps on non-economic damages. Damages caps reduce insurance losses and foster insurer profitability, consistent with the objective of caps. The impacts of caps are greatest for insurance companies that otherwise would have experienced the greatest losses in the state. However, caps may reduce payouts to plaintiffs, potentially reducing …
The Net Effects Of Medical Malpractice Tort Reform On Health Insurance Losses, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia H. Born, J. Bradley Karl
The Net Effects Of Medical Malpractice Tort Reform On Health Insurance Losses, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia H. Born, J. Bradley Karl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In this paper, we examine the influence of medical malpractice tort reform on the level of private health insurance company losses incurred. We employ a natural experiment framework centered on a series of tort reform measures enacted in Texas in 2003 that drastically altered the medical malpractice environment in the state. The results of a difference-in-differences analysis using a variety of comparison states, as well as a difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis, indicate that ameliorating medical malpractice risk has little effect on health insurance losses incurred by private health insurers.
Does Frye Or Daubert Matter? A Study Of Scientific Admissibility Standards, Edward K. Cheng, Albert Yoon
Does Frye Or Daubert Matter? A Study Of Scientific Admissibility Standards, Edward K. Cheng, Albert Yoon
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Nearly every treatment of scientific evidence begins with a faithful comparison between the Frye and Daubert standards. Since 1993, jurists and legal scholars have spiritedly debated which standard is preferable and whether particular states should adopt one standard or the other. These efforts beg the question: Does a state's choice of scientific admissibility standard matter? A growing number of scholars suspect that the answer is no. Under this theory, the import of the Supreme Court's Daubert decision was not in its doctrinal standard, but rather in the general consciousness it raised about the problems of unreliable scientific evidence. This Article …