Medical Malpractice Juries Unfairly Side with Doctors

According to the April 30, 2007 New Jersey Law Journal, recent research shows that that the rate of success in Medical Malpractice claims for plaintiffs is lower than any other claim; only 27-30 percent of cases are won. While that may not seem that low, it is lower than any other type of case. The principle cause for this appears to be related to jurors unfairly siding with the doctors.

What is most shocking about the statistics and negative results at trials for plaintiffs is how it compares to the assessments of the same cases by physicians hired by an insurance carrier, MIIX. Those physicians were asked to rate claims as “defensible, indefensible and unclear”. In that study, plaintiff’s won 21 percent of cases rated by doctors as “defensible”, won 30 percent rated “unclear” and doctors still only lost 42 percent of cases rated “indefensible”! Thus, even in the very strongest cases for the plaintiff, the defendants won the majority of the time.

The studies cited found that one of the primary reasons for the poor results for harmed patients was that juries are deferential to doctors simply because of their position as a doctor. There was also a suggestion that juries have difficulty finding against doctors because of prejudice against patients/plaintiffs and in favor of doctors. The advantages for the doctors did not appear to be fact based, but were based upon sympathies for doctors that juries are supposed to avoid.

These results are troubling. No doctor who has done his duty appropriately should be held responsible for a patient just because of a bad result. However, when a doctor does commit malpractice and the facts presented show this, our society and justice demand that they be held legally and financially responsible for the harm. Despite fundamental principles of justice, it is important to note that juries have held for doctors more than the majority of times even when the claim is rated as indefensible by insurance company doctors.

A potential litigant or juror must also realize that despite the fact that the cases are rated indefensible, these cases are vigorously defended. In fact, not only are the claims defended but also the defendants present “experts” to claim no malpractice occurred or that the harm is negligible.

If we are to protect patients then doctors must be held responsible when their care is inappropriate, incomplete, negligent or outside the standards of care.

We, at Levinson Axelrod, are selective about the cases we take, choosing cases that are determined from the beginning to be meritorious by an independent expert.

We hope that we will be able to continue to convince juries for our clients that when malpractice occurs the doctor must be held responsible. Neither side to litigation deserves an advantage. Thus, we hope that juries will make sure not to give a benefit of the doubt to the doctor, but rather will judge cases on the merits, as we have. We hope they will hold doctors and other healthcare providers responsible for the harm caused when the doctors have committed malpractice or have been negligent. Patients deserve to be protected and compensated when inappropriately harmed.