Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Chat M.D., Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Large language models (LLMs) such as Claude and ChatGPT are the most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems ever created, and they are being used to diagnose and treat patients. But LLMs have been shown to be unreliable, unpredictable, and unsafe on occasion. New AI guidelines recommend hundreds of standards, such as ‘transparency’, ‘trustworthiness’, and ‘safety’. But there is deep uncertainty whether these are sufficient. The literature focuses mostly on which standards best suit AI models, not on how to transmute standards into law. This article does that by considering AI guidelines as a starting point, then evaluating whether existing frameworks …

A New Middle Ground: The Continuous Treatment Doctrine As A Solution To Rhode Island’S Incomplete Tort Reform, Justin Edward Keyes

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hospital Accountability In Health Care Delivery, C. Elisabeth Belmont

Maine Law Review

In recent years, the role of community hospitals in health care delivery has undergone a dramatic change. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, a hospital was merely a "doctor's workshop," providing physicians with the physical facilities, equipment, and personnel necessary to treat their private patients. Due to progressive medical technology, today's hospital has moved from a passive role in patient care to more active participation in the delivery of total health care. The hospital has become a health care provider in its own right, furnishing a broad range of diagnostic and outpatient services, home care assistance, and specialized …

Joy V. Eastern Maine Medical Center: Extension Of A Physician's Duty To Third Parties, Timothy H. Norton

Maine Law Review

In Joy v. Eastern Maine Medical Center, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that a claimant may sue a physician to recover damages for injuries that were caused by a negligently treated patient. The Law Court focused its analysis on the concept of duty and reasoned that a physician's duty to his patient extends to third parties whose injuries are a foreseeable result of negligent treatment. The Joy case sets forth a broad rule that provides a new and untested means of recovery against physicians and hospitals. This Note examines the new rule against the …

Fixed Payment Schedules Do Not Foreclose Liability Under The False Claims Act, Glen Mcclain

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Justice Should Precede Generosity: The Case Against Charitable Immunity In Arkansas, Courtney Jane Baltz

Arkansas Law Notes

This Comment discusses various aspects of the modern hospital and examines charitable immunity’s incompatibility with modern law.

First, Part II explains the historical justifications for immunity and presents the doctrine’s landscape in the United States. Part III examines the role precedent plays in continuing to adhere to the rule of immunity. Part IV takes an in-depth approach of the big business of hospitals by evaluating various financial aspects of charitable hospitals. Part V explores the reality of charitable immunity falling out of touch with concepts of modern law. Part VI takes a more specific look at the application of the …

Achieving Better Care In Pennsylvania By Allowing Pharmacists To Practice Pharmacy, Travis Murray

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Traditionally, state legislatures implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (“PDMPs”) to assist prescribers, pharmacists, and law enforcement in identifying patients likely to misuse, abuse, or divert controlled substances. PDMP databases contain a catalog of a patient’s recent controlled substances that pharmacies have filled, including the date, location, the quantity of medication filled, and the prescribing health care provider. Prescribers in Pennsylvania have a duty to query the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances in most clinical settings. Pharmacists have a similar duty in Pennsylvania to dispense safe and effective medication therapy to patients and to screen patients for potential signs of misuse, …

Due Process Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Save Thousands Of Lives Every Year: Resuscitate The Peer Review Privilege, Alan G. Williams

Journal of Law and Health

Doctors make mistakes—preventable medical mistakes—that kill or seriously injure patients. The best way to reduce these preventable errors is through a medical peer review process typically referred to as a "morbidity and mortality conference." However, over the past twenty years, federal and state courts, state legislatures, and state voters have effectively gutted the morbidity and mortality conference (M&M) as a remedial and preventative tool, resulting in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. Doctors need our help restoring the effectiveness of M&Ms. Congress has created the means to do so; now, all the courts need do is use it. …

Vaccines And The Law, Michael Sanzo Ph.D.

Pepperdine Law Review

The last twenty years have seen a sea-change in the area of proving causation in the toxic tort setting, with courts demanding stronger, scientifically tested evidence. At the same time, a closely related debate has been raging about separating cause from coincidence under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act compensation program for injuries that might have been the result of vaccinations. The Vaccine Act created a no-fault compensation fund financed by a tax on childhood vaccines to address harms resulting from those vaccines. Unfortunately, Congress gave little direction with regard to the level of causal certainty that would be required …

The Multiple Common Law Roots Of Charitable Immunity: An Essay In Honor Of Richard Epstein's Contributions To Tort Law, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

Professor Epstein has long promoted replacing tort-based malpractice law with a new regime based on contracts. In Mortal Peril, he grounded his normative arguments in favor of such a shift in the positive, doctrinal history of charitable immunity law. In this essay, in three parts, I critique Professor Epstein’s suggestion that a faulty set of interpretations in charitable immunity law led to our current reliance on tort for malpractice claims. First, I offer an alternative interpretation to Professor Epstein’s claim that one group of 19th and early 20th century cases demonstrates a misguided effort to protect donor wishes. Rather, I …

Guiding Patrons To Online Health Information: Can Librarians Be Found Liable?, Elaine Gibson

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The amount of health information available on the Internet is growing rapidly and information intermediaries are increasingly being asked to help information seekers find and make sense of this information. This activity is for the most part benign from a legal perspective. However, there is a small possibility that, should the intermediary steer an information seeker to information that proves harmful to the seeker, the intermediary may be found liable for injuries incurred. In this paper, we examine the theoretical underpinnings of the relevant laws, clarify the risks, and recommend ways to minimize risk.

Medical Malpractice Standard-Setting: Developing Malpractice "Safe Harbors" As A New Role For Qios?, James F. Blumstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Concern about medical malpractice issues has reemerged, again stemming from escalating costs in some geographic regions and sectors of medical practice. The Bush Administration has (so far unsuccessfully) supported a cap on noneconomic loss as a strategy for coping with the cost aspects of those medical malpractice concerns, the model being the California approach.

Although the overall initiative for reform has considerable merit, the damage-cap has its opponents and its drawbacks. The damage-cap approach is remedy-centric, focusing on the scope of remedy as a vehicle for containing costs in the area of medical malpractice. By concentrating on remedies, the reform …

Physician Liability And Managed Care: A Philosophical Perspective, Dionne L. Koller

All Faculty Scholarship

Despite the emergence of managed health care and the resulting dramatic change in the role of the third-party payer in the physician-patient relationship, the liability standards applied to physicians largely have remained unchanged. This has created a tension between physicians' legal and ethical obligations, and the requirements imposed on the physician by managed health care. Specifically, the issue confronts the physician in the context of malpractice liability. Managed Care Organizations impose a significant amount of control over the way physicians practice medicine, often forcing physicians to ration care. Notwithstanding any beneficial cost savings that might result, this approach subjects the …

Erisa Preemption Of Medical Malpractice Claims In Managed Care: Asserting A New Statutory Interpretation, Karla S. Bartholonew

Vanderbilt Law Review

Congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA) to protect employee interests and ensure a uniform body of law for pension and benefit plans. The statute's expansive preemption clause and preclusion of extra-contractual damages have since been used to immunize Managed Care Organizations ("MCOs") from liability for patients injuries resulting from medical malpractice. Because plaintiffs with preempted claims may receive only the remedies provided for under ERISA-the right or benefit due under the plan-many injured patients have been left with no meaningful remedy.

"[N]ot a model of legislative drafting,"" the statute's broad preemption clause provides that state …

Time For Legislative Action: Landlord Liability In Ohio For Lead Poisoning Of A Tenant, Brett P. Barragate

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note addresses landlord liability in Ohio for lead poisoning of a tenant. In Part II, the effects of lead exposure on children and the number of children at risk in Ohio are briefly examined to clearly define the problem. Part III describes the lack of federal involvement in the area of lead poisoning in private residential housing. Parts IV and V examine the current state of lead litigation in Ohio and the response of Ohio courts. Finally, Part VI recommends that the Ohio legislature increase its role in the lead poisoning problem and provides remedies to victims of lead …

The National Implications Of Liability Reforms For General Liability And Medical Malpractice Insurance, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia Born

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The stabilization of the insurance market may lead to lower prices for products and for medical care, but will also generally lead to lower values of tort awards as well. If the social objective was simply to reduce losses, then that objective could be achieved by abolishing tort liability altogether. Our societal concerns are clearly much broader. In the absence of a more detailed assessment of the desirability of the reforms and their effect on injured parties, it would be premature to conclude that reform efforts that were successful in enhancing insurance market profitability should be judged a success from …

A Fault-Based Administrative Alternative For Resolving Medical Malpractice Claims, Kirk B. Johnson, Carter G. Phillips, David Orentlicher Orentlicher M.D., Martin S. Hatlie

Vanderbilt Law Review

The recurring crises in medical malpractice litigation have been widely discussed and documented over the past two decades.' In response to these crises, a growing consensus has emerged among legislatures, government agencies, and scholars in favor of tort reform. Indeed, virtually every state has passed some tort reform legislation.'Despite the reforms, several serious problems persist in medical malpractice. The current tort system does not compensate injured patients adequately or equitably, nor does it deter negligent practices sufficiently. These failings occur despite the increasingly high costs to society of the tort system. Particularly troublesome is the impact of these crises on …

Fetal Abuse: Culpable Behavior By Pregnant Women Or Parental Immunity, George P. Smith Ii

Journal of Law and Health

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the pressing need of the law to take decisive action in imposing tort liability for willful and malicious conduct by drug addicted women during their pregnancy. Liability should be imposed notwithstanding the warnings from civil libertarians that the enforcement of such a policy would most assuredly give rise to "prenatal police patrols".

A Proposal To Cap Tort Liability: Avoiding The Pitfalls Of Heightened Rationality, Richard S. Kuhl

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note sets forth a model statute that limits high damage awards, yet will withstand the rigors of judicial scrutiny. After presenting a brief background of the medical malpractice crisis in Part I, Part II outlines the standards of equal protection review that the courts are presently using. The Note then focuses on the constitutional challenges to caps on medical malpractice liability in Part III. Part IV discusses the values and interests that were found to be dispositive in the courts' decisions. Finally, after analyzing the criteria that must be met to ensure that a legislative limitation will survive judicial …

Medical Maloccurrence Insurance: A First Party No-Fault Insurance Proposal For Resolving The Medical Malpractice Insurance Controversy, Larry M. Pollack

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note examines the broad, underlying themes of tort theory and argues that, in general, the tort system's primary responsibility should be compensation, rather than deterrence of risk taking. In so far as the production of goods and services causes injury, such losses should be shared and spread as widely and proportionately as possible. Part II discusses the history and nature of the medical malpractice insurance crisis. Part III evaluates the numerous systemic solutions suggested by various commentators. Finally, Part IV proposes a new solution: first party, no-fault medical maloccurrence insurance (MMI).

Hospice: The Legal Ramifications Of A Place To Die, Abigail Lawlis Kuzma

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Radiation Injuries: Statute Of Limitations Inadequacies In Tort Cases, Samuel D. Estep, Thomas W. Van Dyke

Michigan Law Review

Some injuries from overexposure to radiation may manifest themselves within existing statutory limitations periods, at least under some liberal ( or loose) judicial interpretations. Many injurious manifestations, however, will not arise for a great many years after exposure; it is the thesis of this article that some new legislative solutions must be adopted. Limiting the right to sue to the existing time periods as construed by many courts will be manifestly unfair to plaintiffs. A blanket, unconditional extension of the time period to as much as thirty years for all cases regardless of the local rule as to when the …

Radiation Injuries And Time Limitations In Workmen's Compensation Cases, Samuel D. Estep, Walter R. Allan

Michigan Law Review

The increasing use of radioactive materials and radiation-producing devices in industry and elsewhere makes it clear that injuries from exposure to radiation must be anticipated. It becomes relevant, therefore, to inquire into the extent to which the present workmen's compensation statutes will be able to cope with the injuries which may arise from the use of this new source of energy.

Negligence-Res Lpsa Loquitur-Application To Medical Malpractice Actions: 1951-196, Peter D. Byrnes S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Res ipsa loquitur, "the thing speaks for itself," has been the subject matter of extensive legal literature since its inception almost a century ago. It is now well settled that res ipsa loquitur is no more than an inference of negligence from circumstantial evidence. The doctrine is applicable if an act or occurrence is of the type that ordinarily would not take place without negligence, assuming the plaintiff has himself been passive, and if the instrumentality causing the harm is within the exclusive control of the defendant. The application of res ipsa loquitur to the medical malpractice area has …

Torts--Private Hospitals--Liability For Refusal To Provide Emergency Treatment, John Templeton Kay

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Radiation Injuries And Statistics: The Need For A New Approach To Injury Litigation, Samuel D. Estep

Michigan Law Review

The emphasis given by the mass media of communication to some of the dramatic problems arising from the use of nuclear energy unfortunately has diverted attention from some of the matters about which something can be done by lawyers, administrators, and legislators without the necessity of complicated international negotiations between various parties to the "Cold War." The headlines leave the uninformed, and perhaps often also the informed, public with the impression that even for radiation injuries the important problems all deal with such questions as: (1) Will only a few or many millions of people survive an all-out nuclear war? …

Torts - Obstruction Of A Civil Action - Coercion By A Medical Association To Preclude Availability Of Expert Testimony In A Medical Malpractice Action, William Y. Webb

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff approached nine physicians in an attempt to secure an expert witness for a medical malpractice action. All nine refused, allegedly as a result of threats by the county medical association to expel them and cause a cancellation of their malpractice liability insurance if they testified. The association's actions stemmed from a finding by its "malpractice committee" that the malpractice defendant had not been negligent. Plaintiff then brought this action against the association to recover compensatory and punitive damages for obstruction of a civil action. On appeal from an order granting a motion for nonsuit, held, affirmed. No cause …

Shartel & Plant: The Law Of Medical Practice, C. W. Muehlberger

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE LAW OF MEDICAL PRACTICE. By Burke Shartel and Marcus L. Plant.