Texas Insurance Defense and Litigation

After medical malpractice caps, more doctors moving to Texas

The New York Times today reports that more doctors are moving to Texas after the adoption of medical malpractice caps a couple of years ago:

Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.

The influx, raising the state’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical board’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.

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“Doctors are coming to Texas because they sense a friendlier malpractice climate,” he said.

NYT reports that the GAO will be issuing reporting condemning oversight of nursing homes

The New York Times reports in a story that next week, the Government Accountability Office will issue a report that concludes that the Department of Health and Human Services “fails to hold [nursing] homes with a long history of harming residents accountable for the poor care provided”.  The report will also state that “[s]ome of these homes repeatedly harmed residents over a six-year period and yet remain in the Medicare and Medicaid programs”.

"How Business Trounced the Trial Lawyers"

BusinessWeek online recently posted a cover story about how juries have become for favorable for defendants. Their conclusion: due to concerted, organized efforts for liability tort reform on the part of the business community, Texas has been "flipped" and is now friendly to business efforts. The changes include limitations on punitive damages awards; a bar against lawsuits against manufacturers whose products are more than 15 years old; limits on "non-economic damages" awarded to plaintiffs in medical malpractice claims; and a Texas Supreme Court which is very sympathetic to the defendant:

According to Texas Watch, an Austin consumer advocacy group, of the 69 consumer cases accepted for appeal by the Texas Supreme Court during its 2005-06 term, it decided against the consumer in 57, or 83%, a trend Texas Watch says has been consistent for the past six years. "When you have a large verdict that you receive from a jury, you can't settle the case anymore because the defendants will walk in and say: We know we're going to win in the Supreme Court," says Frederick M. Baron, a Dallas attorney who has handled cases involving exposure to asbestos and industrial toxins.