Woman dies in hospital while being arrested

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

So, if you don't have health insurace, and you have a heart attack, and they refuse to treat you, and you die in the lobby, your family couldn't sue?

Nah, I think it's more like if the doctor (who isn't going to get paid to help you) gives you negligent care, you're not going to be able to sue him.

In this case, I don't know just by reading the article whether or not the hospital is even going to be in trouble. The standard of care for a facility of this type is going to be really, really low. As a matter of law, this woman's estate might have no case as crazy as it seems.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Nah, I think it's more like if the doctor (who isn't going to get paid to help you) gives you negligent care, you're not going to be able to sue him.

In this case, I don't know just by reading the article whether or not the hospital is even going to be in trouble. The standard of care for a facility of this type is going to be really, really low. As a matter of law, this woman's estate might have no case as crazy as it seems.

I believe also, in some cases (again dependent on the state) since an ER's job also it is to triage patients, they can refer patients who are not suffereing from life threatening symptoms to urgent care facilities and if they can get a person to go and free up space for true life threatening situations, they take the liability off of themselves.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by Kevin

In this case, I don't know just by reading the article whether or not the hospital is even going to be in trouble. The standard of care for a facility of this type is going to be really, really low. As a matter of law, this woman's estate might have no case as crazy as it seems.

Wouldn't it be standard of care for the type of medicine, not necessarily for the type of facility? We talked about this quite a bit in class, about the standard of care being somewhat fixed. That may be more CT tort law though, so I could be wrong.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

Wouldn't it be standard of care for the type of medicine, not necessarily for the type of facility? We talked about this quite a bit in class, about the standard of care being somewhat fixed. That may be more CT tort law though, so I could be wrong.

Torts was so long ago

Whatever the standard of care is will usually be defined by whatever your local legislature, in its wisdom has decided that it is. I'm pretty sure you're right -- the locality rule wouldn't really talk about the type of facility, just the type of medicine. Still though, the standard of care in an overloaded emergency hospital in the worst part of town under the locality rule would be different than say the Yale-New Haven Hospital unless you were one of those national standard folks.

Then, the standard would still have to be established by expert testimony.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Torts was so long ago

Whatever the standard of care is will usually be defined by whatever your local legislature, in its wisdom has decided that it is. I'm pretty sure you're right -- the locality rule wouldn't really talk about the type of facility, just the type of medicine. Still though, the standard of care in an overloaded emergency hospital in the worst part of town under the locality rule would be different than say the Yale-New Haven Hospital unless you were one of those national standard folks.

Then, the standard would still have to be established by expert testimony.

Haha, sorry, don't want to dredge up all the 1L stuff. I actually had a talk with my torts professor about this very point, i.e. it not making sense to hold small community hospital A to the same standard as big educational medical center B. I'm pretty sure CT does precisely that, and I think that's one reason why CT medical professionals are trying hard to revamp the med-mal system here in the state.

If you want to read a solid book on the topic (you know, in your free time, haha), Damages by Barry Werth talks about a family going through the med-mal system.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

Haha, sorry, don't want to dredge up all the 1L stuff. I actually had a talk with my torts professor about this very point, i.e. it not making sense to hold small community hospital A to the same standard as big educational medical center B. I'm pretty sure CT does precisely that, and I think that's one reason why CT medical professionals are trying hard to revamp the med-mal system here in the state.

If you want to read a solid book on the topic (you know, in your free time, haha), Damages by Barry Werth talks about a family going through the med-mal system.

I think it's a nationwide movement. We recently shot down a massive tort reform bill here in Oklahoma (governor vetoed it). Amongst numerous things like a 300K cap to noneconomic damages in ALL suits, it included such gems as making the safety records of nursing homes undiscoverable and making it so that a class action suit couldn't be brought for the non-payment of oil and gas royalties. Good stuff.