Senate passes medical malpractice compromise

By John Rodgers, NashvilleCityPaper.com
April 03, 2007

The state Senate unanimously approved a compromise bill Monday aimed at curbing frivolous lawsuits from patients against healthcare providers, a measure the sponsor called a “giant step.”

The compromise bill focused its efforts at curbing “merit-less” lawsuits and dropped the more political issue of caps on non-economic damages that a jury can award to a patient against a negligent healthcare provider.

Senate Republican Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), one of the lawmakers who crafted the compromise, said that the bill is designed to address a problem that both trial lawyers representing plaintiffs and defense attorneys representing the medical industry agree exists — an excess number of lawsuits.

Norris, an attorney, said that 80 percent of the medical malpractice lawsuits are dismissed.

“This bill is a giant step in the direction toward preventing the merit-less claim from being filed in the first place,” Norris said, adding that that saves money for defendants having to, among other expenses, hire lawyers.

Proponents say the bill would crackdown on frivolous claims by requiring an allegedly harmed patient’s lawyer to file a certificate of good faith that the lawsuit has merit.

That certificate of good faith must include a written statement from a medical expert that the lawsuit has a legitimate claim.

Lawyers filing lawsuits that are deemed frivolous could face monetary damages and be reported to the state Board of Professional Responsibility.

The bill did not include the politically charged issue of caps on the non-economic, or pain and suffering, damages that a patient can win from a healthcare provider.

Previously, Republicans had sought those limits to be set at $250,000. Tennessee currently has no caps.

But Republicans in the GOP-led Senate recognized that the caps would not pass the Democratic-controlled state House and they were not included in the compromise bill.

In the state House, the bill has several steps to be made before it makes it to the floor. It is slated to be heard today in a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Rob Briley (D-Nashville), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, worked with Norris on crafting the compromise bill on medical malpractice lawsuits.

But there could be some differences in the Senate version of the bill and the House’s version regarding the “locality rule,” which specifies the standard of care in different locations that contributing medical experts have to be familiar with in order for their testimony to be admissible.

Lawyers on both sides, but mainly plaintiffs, want a broader locality rule to allow for experts to be picked statewide rather than ones that can only testify to a local community’s standard of care.