Lawsuit Abuse News

More lawsuit abuse news on www.SickOfLawsuits.org

Caught Double-Dipping
"Thousands of people who have said they were injured by one potentially lethal material are apparently double-dipping - now asserting separately that they were injured by the other. More than half the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit in Texas seeking compensation for exposure to silica - used in making glass, paint, ceramics and other materials - previously filed claims against a trust set up to compensate those injured by asbestos, a cancer-causing flame retardant &. According to testimony by Lester Brickman, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University, 'As with asbestos, the tragedy of silica exposure is being transformed into an enormous money-making machine in which baseless claims predominate.'" New York Times, February 2, 2005

Report: Doctor Shortage Compromises Patient Care
"A new report, commissioned by the Palm Beach County Medical Society, confirms that the county's emergency room crisis has compromised patient care &. It found that the majority of doctors think patient care has been affected by the crisis, and local hospitals consider the availability of some specialists - especially neurosurgeons, hand surgeons and pediatric neurologists - to be a problem now and one that will continue &.

This is because conditions here have created a so-called perfect storm in health care &. [making] the emergency room an unattractive place for local doctors to work. In fact, Florida had 32,683 licensed physicians last year, down from 50,003 in 1999, according to the state health department. But Palm Beach County's exploding population means it needs more doctors now more than ever." The Palm Beach Post, February 15, 2005

Fen-Phen Fraud
"When word spread that people injured by the fen-phen diet drug cocktail could share in a multibillion-dollar legal settlement, law firms began sponsoring health screenings so large that a judge quipped that one doctor's work 'would have been the envy of Henry Ford.' Tens of thousands of people took echocardiograms - sometimes on machines set up in hotel rooms - to see if they had heart-valve damage caused by the drugs. Doctors earned hefty fees evaluating tests for lawyers, with some handling as many as 10,000 diagnoses apiece &. Years later, people are still arguing whether the scramble to identify victims was corrupted by fraud. 'Our data suggest that medical professionals may have subordinated their clinical judgment to create the appearance of payable claims,' wrote Dr. Joseph Kisslo, a Duke University cardiologist who led the study. 'In at least one case, the result was apparently unnecessary heart-valve-replacement surgery.'" The Associated Press, February 14, 2005