Could Tort Reforms Stop You From Recovering For Medical Malpractice?

If you have a potential medical malpractice claim, why might you have a hard time finding an attorney willing to take the case? In some states, tort reform has made it more difficult for people who have suffered a medical injury to pursue fair financial compensation for their claims. Learn more about tort reform and how they might affect your medical malpractice claim.

What is tort reform and why does it exist?

Basically, tort reform is a legislative cap on how much you can receive for your injuries in a lawsuit. In reference to medical malpractice claims, the idea behind tort reform is to try to keep down the rising cost of medical care by reducing the amount of medical malpractice insurance that doctors and hospitals need to carry.

Not all states are willing to cap the amount of damages available to plaintiffs who have been injured by their hospitals and doctors, and some have ruled that such caps violate the constitution. Right now, 35 states have some form of damage cap. Before you begin a medical malpractice case, you should investigate the limits in your state so that you know how restrictive they are.

How much does it limit your ability to recover for your injuries?

When you've been injured, a typical case looks at several different types of injuries and determines a value for any of them that you've suffered. The ones that are easily quantifiable are called economic damages. These include

• hospital bills

• doctor bills

• the cost of medication

• cost of physical therapy

• lost wages for your time off work

• future income that you may no longer be able to earn

Tort reform caps don't limit the amount you can recover for any of these things. Instead, caps are placed on what is referred to as non-economic damages. These include

• scars and other disfigurements

• loss of enjoyment of life

• depression

• humiliation

• loss of consortium

• past and future pain

Punitive damages are another form of non-economic claim. Punitive damages aren't awarded in every case, however -- they're reserved for cases where the behavior of the doctor or hospital was particularly bad and serve as a form of punishment.

Why do the limits deter some attorneys?

The reason that not all attorneys handle medical malpractice claims is because medical malpractice cases can be expensive to pursue. Some cases are fairly obvious and the only real thing that has to be argued about is the amount of damages that are eventually going to be paid. In other cases, where it isn't clear what error happened or who caused it, attorneys may have to hire a number of expensive experts to prove their case. Attorneys who frequently handle those sort of claims often have experts on staff, which helps reduce the cost of going through an investigation and trial.

If you have a potential medical malpractice claim, talk to an attorney who specifically handles those sort of claims, such as those at Davidson Law Center Inc. Despite tort reforms, your case is still worth pursuing and can be won.