Pennsylvania Supreme Court relents for now on medical malpractice changes
In a letter, the high court informed
At issue is whether to roll back a 2002 court rule requiring malpractice lawsuits to be filed in the county where the alleged medical error occurred, not where a jury might view the claim most favorably.
The Democrat-majority court's proposal drew scorn from Republican lawmakers, and from doctors and their lobbyists. The opponents said "venue shopping" would unleash frivolous lawsuits and drive up doctors' malpractice insurance costs, as sometimes occurred before the rule was instituted with other malpractice changes in 2002 and 2003.
Democratic lawmakers sided with trial lawyers, who were asking the court to make the change. They argued the venue restriction makes it impossible to find impartial juries in some rural counties and pointed out that no other industry faces similar curbs on civil lawsuits claiming injury or negligence.
The
On Thursday, the justices agreed, drawing praise from top
The court's decision came the same day the
At the hearing, hospital officials -- including from
At the hearing,
"Although our specialists would be treating patients in
Absent the rule, he said,
Similar concerns were voiced by Dr.
Independent economists and health care experts later disputed the practicality of those claims.
"I don't see that logic," said
Theoretically, he said, changing the venue rule would allow a lawyer to file a malpractice lawsuit in
"Local and state dynamics factor into strategic partnership decisions," he said, "but malpractice standards are not often the singular driving factor."
The
Still, it was the first public hearing on the issue. The court's committee was keeping secret public comments on the proposal.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, doctors and lawyers squared off in the
Since then, the number of lawsuits and verdicts have dropped, state court records show. Private insurance companies are now taking in more money in malpractice premiums than they are paying out in claims, state insurance records show.
Surpluses have grown so high in a state-created medical malpractice fund that lawmakers and Democratic Gov.
There's no way to know how much the venue change contributed to the decline in lawsuits and verdicts,
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