According to a recent article in USA Today, maternal death rates in the US are the highest in the developed world. Every year more than 50,000 women suffer serious birth-related injuries—700 of those fatal—that could be prevented if healthcare providers followed safety protocols. As the article explains, doctors and nurses often ignore safety recommendations that can prevent birth-related injuries, such as “weighing bloody pads to track blood loss,” or “giving medication within an hour of spotting dangerously high blood pressure to fend off strokes.” As a result of medical negligence, pregnant women suffer severe and sometimes fatal injuries during childbirth, including blood clots and infections.

However, according to an article in Self Magazine, California is doing much better than the rest of the country when it comes to preventing birth-related injuries and maternal deaths. What is different about healthcare in California?

Maternal Death Rate in California is Half That of the Rest of the Country

One of the most common reasons that women suffer debilitating and deadly injuries during birth is due to hemorrhage and blood loss. In California, doctors are prepared to respond quickly (and often effectively) to hemorrhaging. For example, the article describes the “hemorrhage cart,” which was created by a doctor with California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC). What is a “hemorrhage cart”? It is a cart that is “equipped with the instruments needed to treat postpartum hemorrhage as swiftly as possible,” and these carts “are part of the CMQCC’s initiative to reduce pregnancy related emergencies.” In the article, Dr. Elliott Main, who created the cart and is a Stanford University professor of obstetrics and gynecology, explained that it is “like a crash cart,” equipped with “meds, balloons, fluids.”

Due to developments like the crash cart and other initiatives being put into practice by CMQCC, the maternal death rate in California is much lower than the maternal death rate in the rest of the United States. To give you a sense of the maternal death rate in the U.S. and where it stands in relation to the rest of the world, the current rate of birth injury-related deaths is at 26.4 per 100,000 childbirths. The safest countries for childbirth, such as Finland and Norway, have a maternal death rate of 3.8 deaths per 100,000 births. In Canada, the maternal death rate is 7.3 per 100,000 births, and the U.K. and Germany have maternal deaths rates at around 9 per 100,000 births. Where does that put the U.S.? The article describes the ranking starkly: the U.S. is “sandwiched between Uzbekistan’s 26.2 and Kazakhstan’s 26.5.”

Racial Disparities Persist in Maternal Deaths and Birth-Related Injuries

In California, the number is right around 13 deaths per 100,000 births. That number is still higher than other countries in the developed world, but it is significantly lower than the average maternal death rate in the rest of the country.

It is important to make clear, however, that racial disparities continue to persist when it comes to maternal injuries and deaths during childbirth. Indeed, “Black women in this country are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes.”

Contact an Oceanside Birth Injury Lawyer

If you or someone you love suffered serious birth-related injuries, you should speak with a birth injury lawyer about filing a medical negligence claim. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more information.

See Related Blog Posts: Hospital Infections and Spinal Cord Injury Patients California Senate Rejects Legislation Concerning Doctors on Probation

(image courtesy of Janko Ferlic)

Many North County residents get nervous before they visit a surgeon for even a routine surgery. Given the high rate of deadly medical errors in the country, there is a shockingly high likelihood that something might go wrong—even if a surgeon has performed the exact procedure hundreds of times. In some situations, a medical error can result in the death of a patient and may lead to a wrongful death lawsuit.

In some cases, the medical mistake might not be the surgeon’s fault and instead might concern an anesthesia error, for example. However, many surgical errors are in fact attributed to surgeons, and a lot of these mistakes are avoidable. According to a recent article in The New York Times, one of the ways that surgeons work to avoiding making errors is by using a surgery “checklist.” Is a checklist really enough to prevent medical negligence?

What is a Surgical Checklist?

What is a surgical checklist, and how might it reduce the rate of medical errors and preventable deaths? The checklist is essentially what is sounds like – a list of items to check off to ensure that surgical mistakes are not being made. Surgical checklists might include the following items:

• Confirmation of patient’s identity by name tag on his or her wrist;
• Verification of the surgical site prior to the surgery;
• Listing of patient’s allergies and any medications being used during the surgery to prevent allergic reactions;
• Identification of any blood or other fluids in the operating room in the event that they are needed;
• Identification of surgeon, nurses, and other surgery team members by name prior to beginning the surgery; and
• List of every item in the operating room, including “needles, sponges, gauze, and scalpels,” and a check box to indicate each time an item is removed from the surgical tray, used during the surgery, and returned to the steel tray (to ensure that no items are left inside the patient).

How Checklists May Reduce Error Rates During Surgery

By having a checklist in the operating room and literally checking off each item that corresponds to a preventable medical error, surgeons may be able to prevent deadly surgical mistakes. But do the checklists really work? According to the article, a 19-item checklist that has been tested in operating rooms across the country led to this result: “The mortality rate fell to 0.8% from 1.5%, and surgical complications declined to 7% from 11%.” In other words, the use of a checklist does prevent mistakes in the operating room.

But does it work in all different types of hospitals and surgical settings? According to the article, “surgical checklists [have proven] effective in diverse settings,” meaning that they reduce deaths and serious medical mistake injuries in rural hospitals and urban hospitals, as well as in outpatient surgery centers and large-scale hospital facilities.

Contact a Rancho Bernardo Wrongful Death Attorney

If you lost a loved one because of a preventable medical error, it is extremely important to speak with an experienced Rancho Bernardo wrongful death attorney about your case. Contact the Walton Law Firm today to learn more about how our personal injury team can help with your claim.

See Related Blog Posts: Hospital Infections and Spinal Cord Injury Patients Preventing Hot Car Deaths in Escondido

(image courtesy of Luis Melendez)

According to a recent study conducted at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and reported in Digital Journal, certain hospital-acquired infections at San Diego healthcare facilities can have a long-term negative impact on spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. SCI patients who acquire pneumonia and other infections while at the hospital being treated for their catastrophic injuries see a drastic impact on their ability to recover. Specifically, the report indicates that “hospital-acquired pneumonia and wound infections negatively affect the clinic long-term outcome after acute traumatic spinal cord injury.” The study appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Neurology.

Importance of Reducing Hospital-Acquired Infections in California

One of the most significant takeaways from the recent Ohio State study is that hospitals must do more to prevent hospital-acquired infections if they are going to see spinal cord injury patients recover to the best of their abilities. Patient protection demands that hospitals take additional steps to reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections if they are going to take patient safety seriously. As the report explains, “rates of microbial infections in hospitals, although falling due to improved hygiene, remain problematic.”

The Ohio State study looked at data from a time period of more than 30 years and also analyzed information housed by the U.S. National Spinal Cord Injury Database. The researchers assessed information from more than 3,800 spinal cord injury patients, and it zoomed in on 1,203 patients for the study. Of those patients, 564 (or about 47%) acquired pneumonia or a wound infection while in the hospital for care related to the spinal cord injury (both acute medical and inpatient rehabilitative care). As the report explains, “because spinal cord injuries can cause a ‘paralysis’ of the immune system, patients are not able to compensate even long-term for the effect of a pneumonia acquired during the acute phase.”

Dr. Jan M. Schwab, the lead researcher on the study, articulated how the study demonstrates the need to reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections as soon as possible to improve the rehabilitative potential for SCI patients: “These findings provide the first extensive prospective analytical evidence that hospital-acquired infections are predictive for worse outcome with respect to both survival and long-term functional outcome after spinal cord injury.” In short, a person who contracts a hospital-acquired infection while being treated for a spinal cord injury stands less of a chance of surviving in the short term, as well as less of a chance of long-term functionality.

Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries

What causes spinal cord injuries? According to the Mayo Clinic, SCIs can result from many different types of trauma, including damage to the vertebrae, damage to the ligaments, damage to the disks of the spinal column, and damage specifically to the spinal cord.

The most common causes include the following:

• Car accidents;
• Fall-related injuries;
• Intentional violence;
• Sports-related injuries;
• Alcohol use; and
• Disease.

If you or someone you love acquired an infection while being treated for a spinal cord injury, you may be able to file a medical negligence claim. You should discuss your case with a San Diego spinal cord injury attorney as soon as possible. Contact the Walton Law Firm today to learn more about seeking financial compensation for your injuries.

See Related Blog Posts: Spinal Cord Injuries and Older Adults Spinal Cord Injury Breakthroughs: Fact or Fiction?

If your doctor is on probation due to medical negligence or for committing a serious surgical error, how will you know? According to a recent report from KQED News and California Healthline, proposed legislation “would have required doctors and other medical [professionals] to notify their patients if they were on probation for serious infractions.” However, as the report explains, the California Senate rejected the legislation, meaning that there will be no law in place—at least not in the very near future—that will require physicians to inform their patients about their severe mistakes.

Details of the Proposed Legislation and its Limited Application As the report explains, the proposed legislation did not aim to require all doctors and other healthcare professionals who have been cited for any and all forms of medical negligence to tell their patients. The bill only “would have applied to a tiny pool of practitioners—those disciplined for serious offenses such as gross negligence, sexual misconduct, substance abuse, or a felony conviction related to patient care.”

In short, few healthcare providers would have fallen under the purview of such a law. However, for those doctors who would have been included in the proposed legislation, had the bill passed, they would have had to “notify their patients in a one-page, ‘easy to read’ notice that explained why they had been put on probation.” The California Medical Association opposed the bill, contending that such a requirement would have the effect of a suspension because patients likely would not continue to see a doctor who had provided such a notice.

Yet supporters of the bill voiced frustration with the California Senate, arguing that it is difficult for patients to be able to acquire information about their physicians’ histories when it comes to citations and medical negligence. While information about serious offenses and disciplinary actions is available online, it can be difficult for patients to acquire before it is too late.

Obtaining Information About Your Doctor’s Disciplinary Record Under California law, the Business & Professions Code §§ 803.1 and 2027 specify the type of information that the Medical Board of California can provide to the public concerning a doctor’s medical errors or bad acts. As the FAQ from the Medical Board of California makes clear, California residents do not have access to a list of complaints or allegations made against any given physician licensed in the state. Complaints do not become public information unless they result in a disciplinary action against the doctor.

In our state, when a healthcare provider has been disciplined, you can locate information about the disciplinary action through the BreEZe Online License Search function. What type of information is provided here? You can learn about anything from a public reprimand—which is a less severe disciplinary action—to probation. And if a physician is placed on probation, that physician’s license will clarify when she or has completed the probationary period.

If you or someone you love sustained an injury because of your doctor’s medical negligence, you may be able to file a claim for compensation. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer in San Diego can discuss your case with you today. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more information.

See Related Blog Posts: Taking Steps to Avoid Hospital Mistakes Medical Errors and Electronic Recordkeeping

(photo courtesy of Kenn W. Kiser)

When you visit a hospital in San Diego for a routine procedure, you should not have to worry about sustaining a serious injury as a result of medical negligence. However, medical mistakes happen much more often than any of us would like to think. According to a recent article in Yahoo! Finance, up to as many as 440,000 people in the United States suffer fatal injuries every year because of hospital mistakes. In addition to those deaths, it is likely that around 722,000 American develop preventable infections while they are staying at a hospital, and around 75,000 of those infections turn out to be fatal. Yet, as the article points out, we can take steps to prevent some of the harms associated with common hospital errors.

Preventing Falls at the Hospital You might not think immediately of a fall-related injury when you think about a medical error, yet falls in a hospital setting often result from medical negligence. Hospitals need to take steps to ensure that patients do not slip and fall and that they have the proper equipment to move around the facility without getting hurt. According to the article, about one million American patients suffer falls every year when they are in the hospital, and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reports that about one-third of those falls are preventable.

Given that falls can result in serious injuries such as broken bones or traumatic brain injuries, patients should consider ways to protect themselves. What can you do to help ensure that you do not suffer a fall-related injury? You should be sure to tell the hospital staff about any and all medications that could impact your likelihood of suffering a fall. In addition, you should be proactive about asking for help if you believe you might need assistance.

Avoiding Dangerous Medication Errors There are many different types of medication errors that can happen at the hospital, including but not limited to:

• Wrong medicine prescribed or taken;
• 
  Wrong amount of medication prescribed or taken;
• 
  Overmedication; and
• 
  Medication prescribed that cannot be taken with patient’s current drug regimen.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than 50% of all hospital patients receive antibiotics, and approximately “1,000 preventable medication errors occur in hospitals each day.” As the National Patient Safety Foundation’s president and CEO explained, “there are many opportunities for a medication order to go wrong—it goes from a physician, to a pharmacist, then to a nurse to administer it—and a mistake can happen somewhere along that chain.”

What can you do, as a patient, to help prevent a medication error? You should always ask your doctor what medication is being prescribed and why. You should also ensure that your physician and other hospital staff know the medications you currently take to avoid a dangerous drug interaction. Do not forget to mention any dietary supplements or over-the-counter medications, since these, too, can impact a prescription medication. It is also important to seek written instructions for taking the medication you are prescribed.

If you or a loved one recently suffered a serious injury as a result of medical negligence, you should discuss your case with an experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible. Contact the Walton Law Firm today.

See Related Blog Posts: Medical Errors and Electronic Recordkeeping What Should You Know About Medical Errors?

Can the increasing use of electronic records at hospitals and other medical facilities result in more medical mistakes? According to a recent article from Medscape, electronic health records in emergency departments could be leading to preventable medical errors. In most circumstances, we might assume that the use of electronic health records would help healthcare facilities to avoid the kinds of mistakes that result from human error. However, as the article suggests, human error can still factor into electronic health databases—and in fact might be more of an issue than before the age of electronic health records.

Wrong Files, Wrong Clicks, and Misinformation It is all too easy, as the article intimates, for a mouse to slip and for an emergency room physician to click on the wrong file or to enter a dosage number that is much larger than it is supposed to be. At the same time, other employees tasked with entering information such as symptoms into a patient’s file might misread a name or enter that information into the wrong section, resulting in a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. To be sure, “these are easy mistakes to make,” and “as ER doctors and nurses grapple with the transition to digitized record systems, they seem to happen more frequently,” according to the article.

The digital age has brought about a new trend in patient safety errors that simply did not exist when hospitals and other healthcare facilities relied upon paper, handwritten records. While electronic health records (EHRs), which have been pushed at various facilities through financial incentives from the government, likely will be more efficient than paper records in the long run, it is a difficult switch in the short term.

Higher Error Rates for EHRs Older electronic record programs have been in use at hospitals for a little while now, but EHRs are different. They are intended to be compatible with one another (despite a hospital’s location in the country, for example) such that patients can receive quality care even if they require treatment at a substitute hospital. However, because of the way EHRs have been created, they are not compatible with the electronic record programs that currently exist at most hospitals. And as a result, experts expect more medical errors in the early days of using EHRs.

According to Jesse Pines, the director of the Office for Clinical Practice Innovation at the George Washington University, the use of EHRs have resulted in numerous medical errors, including but not limited to:

• Ordering the wrong medications;
• 
  Missing important patient information (due to confusing displays);
• 
  Entering incorrect patient care instructions; and
• 
  Missing specific patient instructions.

Yet as Pines explains, these mistakes might not solely be the result of human error. Pines drafted a report indicating that “a growing body of evidence suggests that many errors may be the result of poor design rather than user errors.” Now, it is important for healthcare workers to get used to these new systems so that mistakes do not happen.

In the meantime, medical errors resulting from EHRs may result in medical malpractice cases. If you or someone you love sustained an injury because of a medical mistake, you may be able to seek compensation. An experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer can assist you today. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more details.

See Related Blog Posts: What Should You Know About Medical Errors? Preventable Pediatric Medical Errors

Medical mistakes happen in San Diego more often than they should, and patients do not always know that they have been the victims of medical malpractice until signs and symptoms start to appear. When a doctor or another healthcare provider—from nurses to hospitals to pharmacists—make a preventable medical error, the injured patient may be able to obtain compensation by filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. What do you need to know about medical errors? According to a recent report from Becker’s Infection Control & Clinical Quality, patients should learn five important facts when it comes to medical errors and malpractice.

Adverse Events are Preventable but Happen with Frequency Adverse events, or never events, are preventable errors that result from a healthcare provider’s negligence. Tracking the annual rate of adverse events largely began back in 1999 when the Institutes of Medicine published a now-famous report entitled “To Err is Human.” Over the last nearly 20 years, however, we have not seen a drop in the number of injurious adverse events. Rather, the report emphasizes that “annual adverse events have hit 100,000 to 400,000 per year.” To put that number in other terms, for every 100,000 hospital admissions each year, 120 adverse events occur. Every year about 4,000 surgical errors (or surgical near-misses), including wrong-site surgeries, happen.

Medical Errors are Deadly Did you know that anywhere from 2 to 3% of patients who are admitted to hospitals end up suffering injuries as a result of a medical mistake or error? Indeed, medical errors are actually the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Some Medical Errors are More Common Than Others Not all medical errors occur with the same amount of frequency. The Becker’s report cites an article in U.S. News & World Report, which identifies the following as the medical mistakes that occur most often:

• Medication errors (including, for example, prescribing the wrong medication or amount, or failing to consider the harmful interactions of a prescription drug with a patient’s current medication regimen);
• 
  Excessive blood transfusion;
• 
  Premature babies being given too much oxygen;
• 
  Preventable healthcare-associated infections (including, for example, surgical-site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, or bloodstream infections, according to a fact sheet from the CDC); and
• 
  Central line infections.

Most Medical Errors Occur in Hospitals Between 2004 and 2015, nearly 6,250 fatal or life-altering medical mistakes were reported in hospitals. That number is very high, and it emphasizes that most medical errors occur in hospitals. With 351 deadly or debilitating medical mistakes during that same period, ambulatory care organizations are another type of site in which medical mistakes happen more frequently than at other locations.

Quality Improvement Initiatives are Not Sufficient to Stop Medical Errors Currently, many hospitals and other healthcare facilities are employing checklist-based quality improvement initiatives. What are these? In short, they require healthcare professionals to check off certain tasks to ensure that no mistakes are made. However, a study in JAMA Surgery recently indicated that these initiatives are not sufficiently effective. We need better methods for curbing the high rate of medical errors in hospitals are other care locations.

If you or someone you love sustained injuries because of a medical error, you should discuss your options with an experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible. Contact the Walton Law Firm to learn more about our services.

See Related Blog Posts: Medical Malpractice and Patient PrivacyPreventable Pediatric Medical Errors

Does the failure to maintain a patient’s privacy ever rise to the level of medical negligence? According to a recent article from NPR, disclosing a patient’s health history under certain circumstances may in fact be grounds for a medical malpractice claim. What do you need to know about your privacy rights as a patient? When might a physician’s violation of those privacy rights lead to a successful lawsuit?

Breaches of Patient Safety May Amount to Medical Malpractice Depending on the state you live in, courts may be more or less willing to consider a breach of privacy in relation to a medical negligence claim. Although California has not yet provided such a ruling, that fact alone does not mean that patients in our state should feel as though they do not have certain rights to privacy that patients in other states maintain.

For example, just this past summer, a patient filed a claim against UCLA and the Regents of the University of California due to a breach of privacy, according to the NPR report. What harm had the patient suffered? She argued that “a romantic rival accessed and shared her medical records.” The NPR article noted that “the rival was a temporary worker in the hospital of a private practice physician affiliated with UCLA’s Santa Monica Office,” and the “doctor acknowledged improperly sharing his password.” The jury in Los Angeles did not find in favor of the patient, but she had already settled out of court with the physician. Subsequent claims in California could ultimately turn out differently, with a jury awarding damages to an injured plaintiff.

Unlike the California court decision, courts in Indiana have been particularly “receptive to such arguments” about patient privacy. Patient advocates contend that more states should behave like Indiana, emphasizing to patients that their privacy rights are important and that healthcare providers will be held liable if they breach those privacy rights.

According to one advocate, “privacy protections should be the same regardless of what state you’re in.” Indeed, he underscored, “there is something wrong with an employer providing the means, providing the access, and providing the tools by which an employee can commit this crime and then being able to hold up their hands and say, ‘It’s not our fault.’ Should federal laws come into play? Or would a larger look to federal protections undercut state laws concerning medical malpractice?

Large-Scale Medical History Breaches Some patient safety advocates argue that medical data breaches are nationwide issues that can involves hundreds—or even thousands—of patients. The federal Office for Civil Rights has looked into large-scale breaches of medical data already. Under current law, healthcare providers are required to notify the Office for Civil Rights “within 60 days of breaches affecting at least 500 people.” In addition, healthcare providers are required to “share details with the media and contact those potentially affected.” Thus far, the Office for Civil Rights has looked into cases even when there has been no clear “demonstrable real-world harm” to the patient. In the last six year, the office has gotten information concerning approximately 1,400 large-scale data breaches.

What happens when smaller patient data breaches impact individual plaintiffs? It may be possible for patients who have suffered breaches of confidentiality to file medical malpractice claims. You should speak with an experienced San Diego medical negligence lawyer about your case. Contact the Walton Law Firm today to learn more about how we can help.

See Related Blog Posts: Preventable Pediatric Medical Errors Patients at Risk of Injury in Smaller Military Hospitals

Tool Developed to Prevent Pediatric Medical Mistakes

A pilot study developed a tool aimed at preventing medical errors in pediatric patients. The study recently determined that, when it comes to pediatric inpatients, “nearly half of the harms in patient charts were preventable.” The study looked at 600 different pediatric medical charts. Of those, 240 charts—or 45 percent of those in the study—had recognizable harms that researchers determined to be “potentially or definitely preventable,” according to one of the researchers. The study has been published in Pediatrics.

The authors of the study, including David C. Stockwell, the medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, developed the Pediatric All-Cause Harm Measurement Tool (PACHMT) in order to determine the causes of pediatric medical errors and whether they’re preventable. Specifically, the tool detects “triggers,” which the researchers define as “a medical record based ‘hint’ that ‘triggers’ the search of the medical record to determine whether an adverse event might have occurred.” In other words, the PACHMT allows researchers to search pediatric inpatients’ medical records to determine whether a medical mistake might have taken place.

The PACHMT is more predictive of some types of injuries than others. To be sure, the positive predictive value depends largely upon the trigger. For instance, preventable infections that occurred in the hospital had the highest predictive value at nearly 86 percent. Oppositely, the positive predictive value of elevated pain was only about 7 percent.

Types of Preventable Pediatric Injuries

When the authors of the study reported on preventable pediatric injuries, what were the most common harms they identified? The following represent some of the most common preventable injuries experienced by young patients:

• Intravenous catheter infiltrations or burns;
• Respiratory distress;
• Constipation;
• Pain; and
• Surgical complications.

The harms occurred in patients with hospital stays between 24 hours and 6 months, with a median stay of 4 days. The study data looked almost equally at male and female patients, whose median age was 4 years old.

Currently, the PACHMT isn’t perfect, as its developers have noted. And the study also had limitations, with a “relatively small sample size and the lack of two physician reviewers.” However, their study emphasizes how trigger tools, such as the PACHMT, can “lead to a better understanding of the epidemiology of harm in hospitalized children, as well as allow tracking of change with patient-safety-focused interventions.”

While some medical errors don’t result in serious harms, many medical mistakes lead to severe and even fatal injuries. If you or someone you love recently sustained injuries because of a medical error, you should contact a dedicated San Diego medical malpractice attorney. You may be eligible for financial compensation.

Photo Credit: paul goyette via Compfight cc See Related Blog Posts: Patients at Risk of Injury in Smaller Military Hospitals Medical Error Prevention and Medical Malpractice Legislation

Small and Underused Military Hospitals

According to a recent article in the New York Times, military hospitals that care for about 1.35 million active-duty service members and their families show “signals of failing in a system” of care. What is wrong with these hospitals? Investigators for the New York Times identified two major issues.

The first issue was size. The hospitals are so small, and so few patients use them, that “it compromises the ability of doctors and nurses to capably diagnose and treat serious illnesses.”

The second issue was underuse. About two-thirds of military hospitals served only 30 patients or fewer per day in 2013, and many served 10 or fewer patients each day. To put this number in perspective, the highest number of inpatients is still “less than a third as many as the typical civilian hospital. That means about half the beds in these military hospitals remain vacant on a daily basis.

According to Dr. Lucian L. Leape, a patient safety expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, these hospitals “should be outlawed.” The Pentagon is planning to scale back on the military hospital system, thus encouraging patients who would otherwise enter the doors for surgery or treatment for a serious illness to visit a civilian hospital instead. What will happen to the hospitals? Many will be converted into outpatient clinics or birthing centers.

Medical Errors and High Rates of Patient Injury

The New York Times report emphasizes the serious problems these hospitals experience in relation to maternity patients and birth injuries or birth defects. The following birth injuries occur with much more frequently at military hospitals:

• Trauma to the infant during birth: 95 percent higher risk at a military hospital than a civilian hospital;
• Postpartum hemorrhage: 43 percent higher risk, on average, at a military hospital;
• Shoulder dystocia and resulting harm in the infant: 40 percent high risk on average;
• Maternal trauma with instruments: 22 percent higher risk at a military hospital than at a civilian hospital.

Birth-related injuries are not the only ones that patients are at risk for at military hospitals. The article also demonstrates higher rates of injury during even routine surgeries, such one to correct a hiatal hernia. Although more than 25,000 Americans undergo this surgery each year, one patient at military hospitals lost her stomach as a result of a medical error. Another example involves the six-year-old son of a Navy officer who suffered fatal injuries after receiving improper treatment at a California military hospital.

Some commentators suggest these high rates of injury are caused by a lack of training for young doctors at these facilities. Other suggest that limited financial resources are to blame.

If you or a loved one suffered personal injuries because of a medical professional’s negligence, it is important to talk with an experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer. Given the recent focus on raising the damages cap, you may be eligible to receive substantial compensation for your injuries.

Photo Credit: taliesin via morgueFile See Related Blog Posts: Medical Error Prevention and Medical Malpractice Legislation San Diego Medical Malpractice and NFL Drug Abuse Claims

A ballot initiative over pending medical malpractice legislation in California, called “one of the nation’s most expensive ballot campaigns” by the Washington Post, received additional support via a television advertisement from Senator Barbara Boxer. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times explains that Boxer “emerged as a forceful spokeswoman for an initiative to raise some medical malpractice awards in the state.”

Proposition 46, Damage Caps, and Medical Malpractice Legislation

The ballot measure, known as Proposition 46, “would increase the limit on certain medical malpractice damages from $250,000 to approximately $1.1 million.” Since 1975, non-economic damages have been capped at $250,000. Unlike economic damages, which typically compensate a victim for hospital bills, medical visits and treatments, and so forth, non-economic damages compensate victims for injuries such as loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, and pain and suffering. Also unlike economic damages, non-economic damages cannot be measured in a fixed dollar amount, and can therefore vary widely from case to case.

According to Senator Boxer, putting a higher cap on medical malpractice damages would help to “prevent medical errors in the first place because there is more at stake.” In order to prevent medical errors, Proposition 46 would require additional safety practices. Specifically, it would “require hospitals to randomly test physicians for drugs,” and it also would “[r]equire doctors to check a statewide database of prescriptions before prescribing certain drugs in an effort to curb abuse of those medications.”

Advertising in a Costly Campaign

In the recent advertisement narrated by Boxer, viewers are shown images of children who died because of “preventable medical errors.” The advertisement does not specifically refer to raising the medical malpractice damages cap, but instead emphasizes that changes to the current medical malpractice law would “hold the medical industry accountable for mistakes.”

Currently, trial attorneys who support Proposition 46, along with consumer and healthcare advocates, have raised approximately $5 million for the campaign. Opponents of the ballot initiative, who released a television ad in late August, include doctors and malpractice insurers, have raised more than $54 million. While the opponents are better funded, a spokesperson for a consumer advocacy group emphasized that those in favor of the initiative “will be competitive on television.”

Medical malpractice awards are a very hot topic in California. News of the ballot initiative to raise the cap for certain compensatory damages even made national news, and California residents eagerly await the November vote. If you or a loved one has been injured because of medical malpractice, contact an experienced San Diego medical malpractice attorney to discuss your case.

Photo Credit: NGerda via Wikimedia Commons See Related Blog Posts: San Diego Medical Malpractice and NFL Drug Abuse Claims Medical Malpractice Initiative Will Appear on November Ballot

Narcotics Prescriptions and Medical Negligence in Football?

Back in May, approximately 500 former NFL players filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in northern California alleging that physicians affiliated with the pro sports league “illegally dispensed powerful narcotics and other drugs to keep players on the field without regard for their long-term health.” The initial complaint was amended shortly after its original filing date to add another 250 players to the lawsuit. Now, 750 plaintiffs are involved in the case against the NFL.

Only a handful of the players are identified by name, however, including Marcellus Wiley, who played for Buffalo, Dallas, Jacksonville, and San Diego during his time in the league. Some of the other named players include Richard Dent and Jim McMahon. McMahon, as many remember, was also involved in the concussion class-action case that was settled for $756 million last year. The players involved in the current claim are seeking class-action certification.

What are the details of the new lawsuit? First, it spans a number of decades, covering the years between 1968 and 2008. During that forty-year period, the former players argue that “team physicians and trainers across the NFL routinely—and often illegally—provided powerful narcotics and other controlled substances on game days to mask the pain.”

Some of the prescribed painkillers include Percodan, Percocet, and Vicodin. But more than just painkillers are involved. The former players also contend that powerful anti-inflammatories like Toradol, and sleep aids like Ambien, were “handed out like candy at Halloween” and “often combined in cocktails,” according to the article in the Insurance Journal. Indeed, the lead attorney in the lawsuit indicated that some of the teams that have been implicated even “filled out prescriptions in players’ names without their knowledge or consent.”

Long-Term Health Damage from San Diego Physician’s Decisions

The alleged effects of narcotic use in the NFL have included long-term health damage, according to the players involved in the lawsuit. They’ve reported a “range of debilitating effects,” which include chronic muscle pain, bone ailments, permanent nerve damage, and organ damage as a result of addiction to some of the drugs named.

And according to Wiley, who suffered partial renal failure earlier this year, the then-San Diego team doctor David Chao regularly supplied him with painkiller injections over an entire season. Chao allegedly gave Wiley the “multiple injections” to help him cope with what he had diagnosed as a “severe groin sprain.” However, an independent physician diagnosed Wiley with “a torn abdominal wall” that actually “required surgery.” The Medical Board of California has since placed Chao on probation, and his license was revoked. And back in 2012, a jury found Chao liable for another patient’s injuries.

The players will need to prove a “cause and effect” relationship between the painkillers and their current injuries. Additionally, they’ll need to show that their health problems are more pronounced than those of other people their age who haven’t been exposed to the same levels of painkiller medications.

Medical malpractice is a serious issue. Indeed, right now many patient advocates in California are working to raise the cap on the damages available to medical malpractice victims in our state. If you have sustained injuries because of medical negligence, you should seek legal counsel. Contact a San Diego medical malpractice attorney at the Walton Law Firm to learn more about how we can help with your case.

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Over the past year, consumer advocates across the state of California have been thinking about the current cap on medical malpractice damages and the possibility for raising that cap. According to an article in Reuters, just last week advocates in favor of raising the medical malpractice cap indicated that “they had gathered enough signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot.” The ballot initiative was a response to thus-far ineffective legislation attempts to raise the damages cap.

The ballot initiative is likely to be controversial, and until quite recently it wasn’t clear whether California residents would have to vote on raising the decades-old medical malpractice cap, or whether the state legislature would have taken care of this without a costly election fight. The cap should have been raised, and the Walton Law Firm strongly supports the effort to raise it.

For San Diego residents who have sustained injuries because of medical negligence, the outcome of the ballot initiative will be very important. In the meantime, if you have suffered a personal injury due to medical malpractice, it’s important to seek advice from an experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer. At the Walton Law Firm, we’re paying close attention to the ballot initiative, and we can talk with you about your case today.

Recap: California Medical Malpractice Damages Cap

As you might recall, California currently has a cap at $250,000 for damages connected to pain and suffering. In other words, a jury cannot award more than that amount for pain and suffering sustained because of medical malpractice. Many Californians don’t believe this cap is sufficient. In particular, Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica-based organization, has been at the center of the current ballot initiative, which is also backed by trial lawyers, according to the article in Reuters.

What would the ballot initiative achieve? The advocates at Consumer Watchdog are hoping to raise the damages cap to $1.1 million—a number that “would more than quadruple the amount of money a patient could be awarded for pain and suffering in a malpractice case.” In short, raising the damages cap is patient-friendly goal. The backers of the initiative have collected 840,000 signatures, which is far more than the 505,000 signatures required under California law to “get it on the ballot.”

Legislative Compromise Failures Leads to Ballot Initiative

In February, state senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg introduced a bill concerning the medical malpractice damages cap that would have “avoided a costly and ugly battle between doctors and lawyers over the ballot initiative,” Reuters reported. The compromise proposed by Steinberg would have raised the damages limit to $500,000 under California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). According to Steinberg, the $500,000 compromise would still be “far below the rate of inflation since MICRA became law 39 years ago.”

While representatives for both lawyers and doctors seemed like they “were close to agreeing on the deal proposed by Steinberg,” it turned out that “talks fell apart,” forcing Consumer Watchdog’s hand with the ballot initiative. Without a legislative compromise, the medical malpractice cap is going to go to the voters. Consumer Watchdog is joined by Consumer Attorneys of California.

According to an article in the Washington Post, “the most expensive race of 2014 could be this California ballot measure.” Indeed, the article described the ballot initiative as one that “pits doctors against trial lawyers in a high-stakes political death match.”

It will be important to follow the ballot initiative closely, as it could have serious implications for medical malpractice lawsuits throughout our state. If you have sustained because of medical negligence, contact us today to learn more about filing a claim for financial compensation.

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The report used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to make its findings. Given the state of emergency room overcrowding in California, the advocacy group described the lacking access to injury care as a “critical problem.”

What Do We Mean When We Talk About Hospital Overcrowding? In general, Californians who visit emergency rooms don’t get quick care, and many accident victims aren’t treated in a timely manner so as to prevent further injury. According to the Los Angeles Times article, people who are admitted to California hospitals after arriving at emergency rooms had to wait, on average, more than 5.5 hours before being seen by a medical professional.

In addition, there aren’t enough beds when people are admitted to the hospital. The report specifically indicated that there’s a “shortage of inpatient and psychiatric beds in hospitals—another squeeze on emergency departments, which often ‘board’ incoming patients until they can be rerouted to the correct hospital department,” which further limits the capacities for emergency room care.

California’s History of Poor Access to Care

This isn’t the first time California has been cited for its struggling access to patient care. In fact, a similar report was conducted back in 2009, when California also earned a failing grade for access to care. According to Dr. Alexander Rosenau, the president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, some of the emergency-room overcrowding may be the result of uninsured accident victims seeking care in the ER.

However, Rosenau worries that policymakers will begin to look to emergency room visits in order to gauge the success of the Affordable Care Act, since many Americans will now have access to primary care through new insurance plans. Yet, in short, we can’t assume that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the need for closer scrutiny surrounding California’s overcrowded hospitals. Indeed, Rosenau emphasized, statistics from the CDC show that “the vast majority of people who come into emergency departments need urgent treatment.” As such, he hopes that policymakers will try to increase quicker access to emergency medicine rather than focus on opening up more primary care options.

When an accident victim suffers serious injuries, he or she often will require speedy emergency care. If you have been injured but haven’t received proper or timely treatment, you may be eligible to file a claim for compensation. Contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney at the Walton Law Firm today to discuss your case.

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Have you been the victim of medical malpractice? It’s important to contact an experienced medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible. California law has a statute of limitations on medical malpractice claims, which affects the time period in which you’re permitted to file a lawsuit. At the Walton Law Firm, we have years of experience handling medical negligence cases and can discuss your claim with you today.

What is Medical Malpractice?

In California, medical malpractice refers to a situation where a professional health care provider acts negligently. Many different kinds of health care providers can be held liable for medical negligence, including physicians, nurses, hospital and office staff, and dentists. Whenever one of these healthcare providers doesn’t abide by a certain standard of care, they can be guilty of medical malpractice.

Keep in mind, surgeries and medical procedures don’t always go as planned—that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re dealing with a medical negligence case. Only an experienced California medical malpractice lawyer can assess the details of your case and make recommendations for moving forward with your claim.

Obstetrics and Medical Negligence in the Sacramento Case What happened in the Leah Gumb case? Leah’s mother, Jenny Kaminer, signed a waiver form to deliver her baby via a C-section. While she was in labor, Leah’s heart rate “would drop, and there wasn’t enough blood from her mother’s placenta to give her oxygen.” Kaminer was taken into the operating room, but while she was in there, she was surprised to learn that her doctors weren’t planning to perform a C-section.

Referring to Leah’s drop in heart rate, Kaminer explained, “I was told, ‘if this happens again, you need a C-section,’ which is why I signed the consent without any hesitation. And I still don’t know to this day when doctors made the decision not to perform the C-section.”

Because doctors didn’t perform the C-section, Leah suffered permanent brain damage. Kaminer recalled, “they took her right away to resuscitate her, and then she was put on a cooling blanket.” According to Kaminer, Leah “was blue and lifeless. Didn’t cry, didn’t move. It was obvious to us that something was catastrophically wrong with her.” Leah stayed in the UC Davis Medical Center for 30 days, and even after being released, she remained on a feeding tube until very recently.

The parents filed a lawsuit, seeking $15 million in damages to pay for Leah’s care. They decided to settle for $9 million, which will provide them with “the money they need to give Leah the best chance at a normal life as possible.” After the settlement had been decided, Kaminer described it as “very welcome in the sense that it relieves out financial burden . . . it allows us to get her as much therapy as she needs without worrying about the cost.”

Medical malpractice can have a significant impact on the life of the victim and the victim’s family. If you or a loved one have been injured by medical negligence, you may be eligible for compensation. Contact a California medical negligence lawyer today to learn more.

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However, the California Medical Association vehemently opposes a raise to the cap. According to an article in Sacramento’s local KABC-7, some experts believe the doctors may win this fight. Since the legislative session ends this month, it’s a good time to return to this issue. Will lawmakers create a solution to the debate between commentators in the medical and legal arenas before the session ends? Or will voters get to choose?

What’s the Ballot Initiative, Again?

Just to remind you about the key players involved in the proposed alterations to MICRA: Bob Pack, whose two children were killed by a woman who was driving while impaired by medications that her doctor carelessly prescribed. At the time of the incident, Pack was only eligible for $250,000 worth of compensation for each of his children’s lives due to the medical malpractice cap.

Does the ballot initiative propose anything besides relaxing the cap on medical malpractice damages? The Pack ballot measure, if it passes, would “require random drug testing of doctors,” and it would also “mandate the medical profession use a state database that keeps track of prescriptions,” according to KABC-7. The primary part of the initiative, however, is to raise the ceiling on medical malpractice damages to $1.1 million and to permit that number to change over the years in order to adjust for inflation.

The president of the California Medical Association, Dr. Paul Phinney, recently explained why he’s opposed to the ballot initiative. In short, he believes it will drive up costs unnecessarily on both the medical and legal ends of the spectrum. Phinney said, “it will increase meritless lawsuits, which will increase lawyer fees, increase healthcare costs, decrease access to care and won’t do anything to improve the quality of medical care.” Some commentators like Phinney have also expressed concerns about the very expensive campaign that the ballot initiative is likely to produce.

So, who’s right? A recent news story in ABC10 shows one victim’s side in the fight to relax the medical malpractice damages cap.

Chula Vista Family Fights for Medical Malpractice Damages

As lawmakers and medical professionals contend with the large-reaching implications of the ballot initiative, a report from ABC10 depicts the personal and individual consequences of the current medical malpractice damage cap.

In Chula Vista, one family has been suffering the consequences of the $250,000 cap since 1994. In the early 1990s, medical professionals misdiagnosed Kathy Olsen’s 2-year-old son Steven with meningitis. In fact, Steven had a dangerous infection that led to a brain abscess. Medical professionals missed the serious brain infection attacking Steven, and he ended up suffering severe brain damage as a result. After doctors discovered that Steven had a brain abscess following a CAT scan, he underwent surgery but he “could not see, eat, walk or even speak” after the surgery.

Olsen filed a lawsuit in 1994, and a jury awarded her family $7.1 million. However, the California MICRA capped her damages at only $250,000. Olsen recently spoke out about the ballot initiative, making clear that she and her family hope the damages cap is relaxed. For Olsen, even $1.1 million isn’t enough, “but at least it will be a little bit more,” she told ABC10.

Right now, Californians will have to wait and see what happens with the ballot initiative. But in the meantime, if you or a loved one have been injured because of medical malpractice, you could be eligible for compensation. Contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at the Walton Law Firm today to discuss your case.

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Nearly forty years after the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act capped noneconomic damages in our state to $250,000 for medical malpractice, “trial lawyers and consumer groups have unveiled a ballot initiative that would relax the cap considerably,” said the Los Angeles Times. Indeed, if voters approve of the new measure, the “allowable amount for noneconomic damage payouts for victims of medical malpractice would quadruple.”

For advocates of tort reform, limiting noneconomic damages has been a point of much significance. Simply put, noneconomic damages, such as those for pain and suffering, provide compensation for injuries that aren’t directly related to medical bills or lost income, for example. So why the ballot measure, and why now?

Details of the Ballot Measure

The Sacramento Bee reported on the ballot initiative, filed by Robert S. Pack. His two children were killed in a car accident by a driver who was under the influence of prescription drugs “given to him by irresponsible doctors.” If it’s approved, the ballot measure will raise the cap for noneconomic damages to about $1.1 million and will allow that number to continue to rise with inflation.

While Consumer Attorneys of California hasn’t decided whether it will formally endorse this ballot initiative, the ballot initiative is expected to “encounter fierce opposition from the medical community,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

Problems with the Current Cap

According to commentators, one of the primary problems with the $250,000 cap is that it originated in 1975 and has never been relaxed to account for inflation.

In addition, the Los Angeles Times article indicated that the effects of the damage cap “are not felt evenly.” What does this mean? For example, victims of medical malpractice in our state can only receive up to $250,000 in damages, while people who sue for other harms don’t have those damage caps imposed.

Moreover, when someone is very seriously injured by medical malpractice, the $250,000 amount in damages just isn’t sufficient. What about someone who suffers from a severe brain injury or has been paralyzed? Those victims can’t recover any more for loss of enjoyment of life than victims of less serious injuries who are actually likely to recover in their lifetimes.

There are a number of other problems, as well. First, the current cap tends to disproportionately affect women. Juries tend to award women 59% of the men’s median amount since the cap has been imposed. The award cap can also hinder a victim’s ability to find a lawyer to take her case. Since many lawyers who handle tort litigation, including medical malpractice claims, work on a contingency basis, they’re only paid a portion of what they’re able to recover for the client. With a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages, a medical malpractice lawyer isn’t always likely to find a medical malpractice case profitable. Without an experienced medical malpractice attorney, a client is unlikely to recover damages for her injuries.

Other commentators suggest that malpractice caps were instituted to reduce healthcare costs, but studies tend to show that caps only cut healthcare costs by a trivial amount—about 0.5%, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Have you been injured as a result of medical malpractice? It’s important to speak to an experienced attorney as soon as possible. Our state has a statute of limitations on medical malpractice claims that requires you to file your case within a specific period of time. The dedicated attorneys at the Walton Law Firm can speak to you about your case today.

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In fact, the California Department of Public Health actually fined a total of ten hospitals in our state during the first week of June 2013, and three of those hospitals included the facilities mentioned above in the San Diego area. The fines highlighted medication errors and patient care problems at Fallbook Hospital, Palomar Health in Escondido, and Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside.

If you or your loved ones have suffered injuries as the result of medical negligence or medical malpractice, you may be eligible for compensation. While recent hospital fines in California alert us to medical negligence in several facilities in our area, medical malpractice and medical ‘never events’ happen more often than we’d like to think. An experienced personal injury attorney can speak to you about your case today.

What are ‘Never Events’?

According to California state law, the Department of Public Health can “issue administrative penalties” that range from $25,000 to $100,000 when investigations reveal evidence of negligent hospital care that has put a patient in “immediate jeopardy of serious injury or death.” In many cases, these incidents are known as medical “never events.”

What is a “never event”? It’s a term that the former CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF) introduced in the early 2000s to describe “particularly shocking medical errors that should never occur.” The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has expanded the list over the past decade, and personal injury lawyers and medical professionals now use the term to signify not only especially egregious errors in the healthcare setting, such as wrong-site surgery, but also to indicate adverse events that are “unambiguous, serious, and usually preventable.”

Since 2011, “never events” have been labeled according to six different categories, which include: surgical, product or device, patient protection, care management, environmental, radiologic, and criminal. Still, the most common “never event” to occur continues to be wrong-site-surgery, followed by operation or post-operation complications, delays in treatment, medication errors, and patient falls. If you’ve been a victim of any of the categories of “never events,” you should speak to a licensed attorney to discuss your options.

San Diego Area Hospital Crimes and Fines

According to the UT San Diego article, Fallbrook Hospital received a $25,000 penalty for “administering the wrong medication to a newborn.” In January 2011, this medication error resulted in a newborn baby receiving a dose of methergine, an anti-hemorrhage drug that was supposed to be administered to the baby’s mother who “suffered uterine bleeding after delivery.” Instead, the dose was injected into the newborn, who then began to exhibit “seizure-like activity.” The two nurses on staff responsible for the baby were “subject to disciplinary actions in accordance with the hospital’s policy and procedure.” The infant will require additional neurological examinations to determine the extent of brain injury as a result of the medication error.

More serious incidents occurred at Palomar and Tri-City, where higher fines were imposed following patients’ deaths. Both hospitals had been fined in the past, which also contributed to higher fines than the $25,000 penalty for Fallbrook. The California Department of Public Health fined Palomar $100,000 after a 64-year-old patient died after falling and hitting his head. Tri-City was fined $75,000 after a cancer patient died from internal hemorrhaging after falling out of bed.

If you have questions or concerns about filing a claim for medical malpractice or medical negligence, contact us today to discuss your case.

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Malpractice at the Dentist Dr. Conrad Murray Case Highlights Criminal vs. Civil Medical Malpractice Issues

Recently, the issue of anesthesia and other forms of sedation has become prevalent with regard to the dental industry. Typically, an anesthesiologist must attend school for twelve years, including four years of college, four years of medical school, and an additional four years in an anesthesiology residency before they are permitted to administer anesthesia on their own. On the other hand, the anesthesia industry has begun offering dentists an opportunity to receive certification to use anesthesia by attending weekend courses. More than 18,000 dentists have attended these weekend anesthesiology courses in the past five years. The courses are intended to allow dentists to start anesthetizing patients immediately. Many dentists are lured into the taking these classes by the promise of tens of thousands in extra income annually, which a great deal of dentists need to offset the high cost of attending dental school.

Unfortunately, the consequences of using anesthesia without proper training can be severe. Even a well-trained dentist will have difficulties with anesthesia, and most likely will not have the facilities or equipment to handle such emergencies. Particularly with children, using too much anesthesia can be deadly.

Proponents of anesthesia use during dental procedures argue that patients who are sedated allow for a safer procedure, especially with children. Unfortunately, 31 children have died after being sedated by dentists over the last fifteen years. The actual number of deaths may be even greater, because there is no national registry for dental deaths and dental anesthesia deaths are not always properly reported.

Generally, dentists will instruct the patient to take an oral sedative about one hour before the appointment. Once the patient arrives, the dentist may give the patient more pills if he or she does not believe that one pill has achieved the desired effect. Unfortunately, oral medications take longer to become effective than sedatives taken intravenously or inhaled where the effects are almost instantaneous. In many cases, the dentist can inadvertently cause an overdose by providing the patient with more pills.

Currently, the American Dental Association has guidelines for dental sedation. They recommend limiting sedatives to only one dose on the day of treatment, and that dose should not exceed the maximum recommended dose of the medication required to achieve the intended level of sedation. Even where a dentist follows the ADA guidelines, there is significant danger for younger patients because these guidelines are only intended for patients aged 8 and older. Therefore, any child younger than eight-years-old and anyone with health problems, is at greater risk, even if the guidelines are followed, and should probably avoid sedation altogether if possible.

[Image courtesy of fotopedia. Attribution: Matt Lemmon, lickr-242049972-original.jpg]

Two California wrongful death lawsuits have already been filed, one each by Mr. Jackson’s parents and also on behalf of his three children, against Dr. Murray and the company behind Michael Jackson’s final “This is It” tour, AEG Live LLC. On November 9, a Los Angeles judge ruled that the civil suits can move forward, so Dr. Murray’s court battles are by no means over. Under California tort law, a criminal verdict can be used as evidence in a civil trial. Also, the burden of proof in a civil trial is lower than in a criminal trial. A prosecutor has to show the defendant committed the crime “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is a difficult standard to meet. In a civil case, the plaintiff need only show responsibility by a “preponderance of the evidence,” which in layman’s terms means it is more than 50% likely that the defendant is responsible. Also, evidence laws are more lenient in civil cases than criminal, meaning that evidence excluded from the criminal trial may be used in the upcoming civil cases.

The end result of these actions is hard to guess at this point, even for San Diego medical malpractice lawyers. AEG’s responsibility will likely depend on the specific wording of the contracts involved and also the nature of the company’s ties to Dr. Murray. With the appeal of his criminal verdict pending, Dr. Murray may also wish to avoid further court battles and the accompanying media frenzy by settling the suit out of court. It is unclear at this point what kind of medical malpractice insurance he may have, as well.

While the media attention focused on the death of an international superstar like Michael Jackson may seem unrelated to the lives of average Californians, the National Safety Council estimates that over a hundred thousand families lose a loved one to a preventable accidental death each year. And wrongful deaths alleged through medical negligence are very complex cases regardless of whether the victim is famous or not. There are specific rules on who may file these types of civil suits. There are also deadlines as to how long after the death of a loved one a California wrongful death lawsuit may be filed—generally up to a year after the death for a medical malpractice claim. But the varying timelines and rules depending on the type of wrongful death alleged and what type of defendant is being implicated, along with the complex nature of these cases that often involve expert testimony, mean that it is very important to consult a San Diego wrongful death lawyer. These professionals can answer any questions you have about filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Because of the short deadlines for filing such cases, if you have suffered the loss of a loved one in what you believe was a preventable accident or through medical negligence, please seek legal advice from an experienced medical malpractice and wrongful death lawyer as soon as possible.

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