If you give these doctors a pat on the back, that will only make things get out of hand. Then you may start having doctors sterilize ANYONE that THEY feel is abusing the system, without knowing anything about that person. I don't understand why any intelligent human being would support that kind of thing.

It is attitudes like yours that scare me when it comes to jury trials. Too often jurors get hung up on irrelevant issues and humanistic things and disregard the actual law. The sad part is that if the lawsuit goes to trial and gets to a jury, the jury will probably do the very same thing you are doing.

People need to understand that unsympathetic plaintiffs deserve their day in court as well if they have legitimate legal issues.

That's why I went with Battery. With Battery, you get straight to punitives (without all those nasty medmal caps). With malpractice, since it's a negligence based claim, I'm pretty sure you have to prove damages to win.

I'm definitely not a medmal guy and don't (yet) do civil rights cases, although I'm planning on getting around to calling up the federal Bar's pro bono folks to do pro bono prisoner civil rights claims against the state.... so maybe in a couple years I'll revive this thread and wax eloquent on the requirements of 42 USC 1983, et. seq... but not today :)

Still though, the jury could find that a battery was committed, but only award nominal damages. That sort of thing [juries treating unsympathetic plaintiffs badly] is at the heart of our legal system. Despite being right on the law, it's still important to prove the moral righteousness of this case, and this lawyer might have a rough go of it.

At least if they find a battery was committed, that won't result in free reign for doctors to do this kind of thing. Nominal damages are better than nothing. Proves a point.

:)

Yeah, you do have to prove damages. She wouldn't likely be able to prove special damages (unless the bill for the tubal ligation was more than a bill would be for the IUD), but she could perhaps get general damages.

I bet the bill would be higher for TL than IUD since she provided the actual IUD herself...just my two cents since I have no clue about all this legal mumbo jumbo :D

Proves a point to the plaintiff's lawyer to not take cases like that again...

I don't know if I agree with that. What is the difference between this case and a case involving someone who goes in for a face lift and gets a breast reduction on her 44H's instead? I mean you could make the argument that she needed the reduction anyway for health reasons, but that's not what she asked for. The focus should really be on the fact that it appears that the procedure she requested was NOT the procedure that was performed.

If it later turns out that she asked for the ligation (which I doubt) then that would be a different story. But somehow I think if that was really the case, gag order or not, that information would have been leaked by now.

Hell, I wanna know why she brought her own IUD.

I guess I wasn't being clear.

Hypothetically, if only nominal damages are proved on the battery, the lawyer is going to lose lots of money on this case. You're a law student, so you probably don't have a lot of experience at evaluating cases based upon whether they'll help you pay your student loans or whether they'll waste many hours of your time, cost you an arm and a leg and leave you with nothing.

A lot of hospitals don't stock certain implantable devices. If she wanted a specific device implanted that they didn't have, then she would have to bring it with her. I have actually seen this happen when I've been on Plastics with patients bringing their own breast implants.

Pro bono.

Publicity.

I don't have student loans. :cool:

I'm a law student, but I do have plain common sense. It is pretty obvious when some cases are a waste of time. Others, not so much. There isn't enough information to say it is a waste of time just yet.

I'm also a law student, but I'm not going to go on a public forum and begin talking about Tort law as if I am an expert. From a legal perspective, if she didn't sign a consent form, they were wrong. From a personal perspective, people who can't take care of the children they already have and who have had parental rights already terminated should be sterilized and they should also be charged with child neglect.

Here come the flames. I am a former caseworker and counselor. I've watched women with drug addictions and parental rights terminated, who lived on the system, complain when CYS didn't give them more handouts than they already got. I've seen people play the system like a fiddle, on more than one occasion. I saw it every day.

Because this thread is based on her being sterilized, I will attempt to refrain from putting my personal opinion into the discussion regarding child rearing (it seems I already failed above). Legally, I don't even know how you could walk into an office and say, "give me surgery using this item." I know that even to get a new piercing (when I got my belly button re-pierced) I was not allowed to use an old earring that I soaked in alcohol. The tattoo/ piercing artist did not want to use items that they don't sell to cover their own butts. With malpractice being such a hot button issue, why would a Doctor be okay with that? I'm not a Doctor-so if anyone here is or is in med school, please explain.

All implants come in sterile packaging. Patients that bring their own items to the hospital must bring them in their original, unopened, sterile packaging in order to be used. That being said, patients may also bring their own medications to the hospital to take instead of using medications provided by the hospital that may charge them much more for the items.

Is this maybe a state to state law? I've never heard of such a thing, and I certainly would not have anything IMPLANTED at a hospital that didn't have it on hand and made me bring my own. Maybe it's in sterile packaging, but what if (example) the patient accidentally leaves the package in the sun? If you're going to a ob/gyn who uses IUDs frequently for their patients, why would they practice at such an establishment?

This just makes no sense to me because like als463 said, I've never even seen any of my friends be allowed to get a piercing (from ears to everything else) and "bring their own."