Editorial in the Marietta Daily Journal

Joe Kirby, Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal pens a great column:

No Miracle Cure
by Joe Kirby
Columnist
September 20, 2009 01:00 AM

Let's say you go to the doctor or surgeon for what is supposed to be a routine procedure, like a colonoscopy or facelift. But thanks to the doctor's or hospital's negligence or ineptitude, the outcome is anything but routine. For a Marietta woman whose case was heard last week by the Georgia Supreme Court, the outcome was horribly disfiguring facial scars - scars so severe her lawyers describe the photographs of them as too gruesome for public distribution.

"Too bad," say tort reform-minded lawmakers around the country about the victims in such cases.

They are pushing to put caps on damage awards in malpractice lawsuits brought in the wake of such cases. In fact, the Georgia Legislature already imposed such caps back in 2005 shortly after the Republicans took control of that body for the first time in more than a century. They capped "pain and suffering" awards (as opposed to economic damage awards) at just $350,000.

I'm sure that $350,000 is more than enough to ease the pain of a mangled face. Aren't you?

And what about the case of an unfortunate Fulton County infant, who, thanks to a botched circumcision in 2004, will go through life missing a third of his penis? I'm sure that every last one of the males reading this column feels that $350,000 would be more than adequate compensation for spending the rest of their life missing a third of his penis. Especially any tort reform-minded congressmen or state legislators, apparently.

Many tort reformers in Georgia and around the country are enamored with the notion that malpractice reform should be the cornerstone of any effort to improve the nation's health care system. They want to make it much harder to pursue meritorious medical malpractice lawsuits and want to cap awards at ridiculously low levels in order to try to dissuade people from filing them, and attorneys from taking them.

The 2005 Georgia General Assembly was on the cutting edge of med-mal reform back in '05, you might say. The law it passed, with its $350,000 cap on non-economic damages, is so severe - so hard-hearted - that if your stay-at-home spouse, or your young child (i.e., anyone who is not employed or who lacks an earnings history), is inadvertently killed or maimed for life by a doctor, the most the plaintiff can hope to ever recover via a jury trial is that $350,000.

The state Supreme Court last week heard arguments in the case brought by Betty Nestlehutt, now 75, of Marietta, whose doctor inadvertently shut off nearly all of the flow of blood to the skin of her face during plastic surgery, causing gaping wounds to later open up across the lower half of her face as the skin died.

After hearing all the evidence, the 12-person jury found her pain and suffering damages were worth $900,000. Her doctor's lawyer argues that that amount should be automatically reduced to $350,000. The Supreme Court must decide on the constitutionality of the caps - that is, whether, as Justice Carol Hunstein wondered aloud last week, the caps have turned the right to trial by jury into a "hollow right."

Tort reform advocates argue that soaring malpractice insurance fees are driving doctors out of Georgia and into retirement; hence the need for the caps. Yet in Georgia, doctors are not required to even carry malpractice insurance. All I know is that the phone book is still overflowing with listings for doctors - just as it was before the awards were capped - and that WellStar Kennestone Hospital's "footprint" atop the hill on Church Street keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Those pushing for med-mal reform like to portray it as "jackpot justice." And yes, there have been abuses, such as John Edwards' shamelessly over-the-top - and eventually extremely lucrative - summations to juries in a string of lawsuits on behalf of babies who he claimed suffered cerebral palsy because their doctors failed to perform Caesarian deliveries.

And Republicans also argue, credibly I think, that the fear of lawsuits has caused doctors to practice "defensive medicine" - ordering multitudes of expensive but often unnecessary tests, mostly for "CYA" reasons in case they are later sued.

Yes, we should be very wary of the pitfalls of Obamacare, but be ware as well of tort reformers' claims that malpractice reform is the miracle cure that will, almost by itself, cure all that ails the country's medical system.

There has to be a better way of protecting doctors from frivolous lawsuits than by the kind of arbitrary, one-size-fits-all jury-award caps passed by the Georgia General Assembly. Those caps have nothing to do with the evidence of the case and serve only to hurt catastrophically injured patients whose claims have already passed muster by a judge and jury.

If you don't believe me, just ask Ms. Nestlehutt - or wait a few years, and ask that poor kid from Fulton County.

Joe Kirby is Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal and author of "The Bell Bomber Plant."