Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

This story from Idaho provides an excellent example of why there should be no statute of limitations for sex abuse cases. Children fear telling the story and as in this case in Idaho when the story does get told there are forces in the community that lash out at the victims. As trial lawyers we are not afraid to do the fighting so that the victims can receive justice.

Whispers in the courthouse about "missing cases" and a clandestine meeting at midnight started rookie reporter Peter Zuckerman of the Idaho Falls Post Register on an investigation that would lead him to expose the extraordinary story of a pedophile working within the local Boy Scouts, and a brave young scout who had the courage to speak up and stop him. What was hidden from the public -- concealed within those court records -- was the story of a Boy Scout leader named Brad Stowell, convicted in 1997 of molesting two children, who had admitted under oath in a court deposition in 1999 to molesting about two dozen children beginning as far back as 1988. Zuckerman, along with executive editor Dean Miller, fought successfully to unseal court records and then tracked down victims of abuse to reveal that Boy Scout leadership and at least one official in the Mormon Church -- which sponsors most of the Boy Scout Troops in Eastern Idaho -- missed opportunities to stop Stowell from working in close proximity to children.

The Post Register published the "Scouts' Honor" series in early 2005, and the paper immediately came under fire from some in the community. The fallout of the stories ended up being far more dramatic than anyone had anticipated. A prominent local company took out full-page ads in the paper challenging the reporting and claiming, "the Post Register's real intent was to smear the Scout's good name and take away what the Scouts value most, their honor." Additional victims came forward to tell their stories of abuse. And one father, motivated by his sons' accounts of abuse, dedicated himself full-time to changing Idaho's statue of limitations in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors.

Read the original 6-part "Scouts' Honor" series published in late February/early March 2005 and subsequent reporting in the Idaho Falls Post Register.

This story from Idaho provides an excellent example of why there should be no statute of limitations for sex abuse cases. Children fear telling the story and as in this case in Idaho when the story does get told there are forces in the community that lash out at the victims. As trial lawyers we are not afraid to do the fighting so that the victims can receive justice.

Whispers in the courthouse about "missing cases" and a clandestine meeting at midnight started rookie reporter Peter Zuckerman of the Idaho Falls Post Register on an investigation that would lead him to expose the extraordinary story of a pedophile working within the local Boy Scouts, and a brave young scout who had the courage to speak up and stop him. What was hidden from the public -- concealed within those court records -- was the story of a Boy Scout leader named Brad Stowell, convicted in 1997 of molesting two children, who had admitted under oath in a court deposition in 1999 to molesting about two dozen children beginning as far back as 1988. Zuckerman, along with executive editor Dean Miller, fought successfully to unseal court records and then tracked down victims of abuse to reveal that Boy Scout leadership and at least one official in the Mormon Church -- which sponsors most of the Boy Scout Troops in Eastern Idaho -- missed opportunities to stop Stowell from working in close proximity to children.

The Post Register published the "Scouts' Honor" series in early 2005, and the paper immediately came under fire from some in the community. The fallout of the stories ended up being far more dramatic than anyone had anticipated. A prominent local company took out full-page ads in the paper challenging the reporting and claiming, "the Post Register's real intent was to smear the Scout's good name and take away what the Scouts value most, their honor." Additional victims came forward to tell their stories of abuse. And one father, motivated by his sons' accounts of abuse, dedicated himself full-time to changing Idaho's statue of limitations in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors.

Read the original 6-part "Scouts' Honor" series published in late February/early March 2005 and subsequent reporting in the Idaho Falls Post Register.

“The defibrillator leads pulled off the market this week by Medtronic Inc. may pose a higher risk of fracture in younger adults and children, a population for whom the devices were particularly popular in part because of their small diameter. Children make up a relatively small share of patients who receive the implanted devices. But leads -- wires that attach defibrillators to patients' hearts -- tend to come under greater stress in more-active people, including kids, adolescents and younger adults.”

Anna Wilde Mathews and Thomas M. Burton, Wall Street Journal, 10-19-07

As a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer I have known for a long time that drugs and medical devices are not necessarily safe just because the FDA says so. The fact is that the FDA is full of people that either used to or want to work for the drug and medical device companies. There are time when the regulatory system is so incestuous that safety is compromised. Consider this story from Barry Meier of the New York Times:

“A Congressional committee notified the Food and Drug Administration yesterday that, as a result of a recall by Medtronic of a product linked to patient deaths, it was reviewing how rigorously the agency required heart device components to be tested. In a letter to the agency, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asked agency officials a series of questions about its oversight of leads, the wires that carry electrical information between an implanted defibrillator and the heart. Among other issues, Mr. Waxman asked the agency to provide information about how it determines how much to test leads before marketing and why the agency does not give leads the same scrutiny that it has given in recent years to defibrillators.”

Barry Meier, New York Times, 10-23-07

Cruise lines seem to want it both ways. They want you to feel secure knowing there is a doctor on board but they do not want to take responsibility when the doctor is negligent. The Wall Street Journal reports:

“In October 2005, during her 37th wedding anniversary cruise aboard Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s Legend of the Seas, Janice Sullivan slipped and hit her head on a buffet table, briefly knocking her unconscious. The ship doctor gave the 60-year-old Cape Coral, Fla., retiree an over-the-counter pain reliever, but didn't scan or X-ray her head despite continuing pain over the next several days, according to Mrs. Sullivan. After she got home, Mrs. Sullivan went to an emergency room, where a neurologist found a blood clot. Concerned it could cause a stroke, he performed invasive brain surgery. But Mrs. Sullivan had a surprise in store when she sued the cruise line and the ship doctor: Most ship doctors, despite typically wearing a crew uniform, are classified as independent contractors. And cruise companies contend they are no more liable for the doctors' competence than a landlord who rents office space to a physician on land.”

Stephanie Chen, Wall Street Journal, 10-24-07

Before you check into a Chicago hospital wouldn't it be nice to see some statistics on medical errors. That information is available but not to the public. Why not? My guess is it has to do with money. Hospitals with bad safety records are afraid to lose patients and revenue if their safety records became public. I say let the consumer decide based on fair access to information. Consider this story from the Seattle Times:

“Over the past year, hospitals in Washington left ‘foreign objects’ in 36 surgery patients. And 21 people got surgery on the wrong body parts. Hospitals have reported such ‘adverse events’ to the state Department of Health since 2000, also including performing surgery on the wrong patient, and medication errors that can kill or seriously harm patients. But now the Washington State Hospital Association says it doesn't want the public to know which hospitals made the mistakes. It contends that a bill passed last year forbids release of such records, and the association has gotten the state to halt disclosure. At least one state lawmaker is vowing to fight back.”

Carol M. Ostrom, Seattle Times, 10-23-07

As a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer I would be happy to see a similar rule in Cook County. Too often cases that should settle do not even come close to settling until the eve of trial. Madison County has addressed this:

"The Illinois Supreme Court has approved rules adopted this year by the Madison County court for handling medical malpractice cases, Chief Judge Ann Callis said Wednesday. Those rules require people claiming injuries and the doctors they sue to meet and at least talk of settling any time a medical malpractice case is filed. Doctors saw their insurance premiums skyrocket a few years ago, and dozens closed shop in the area. Insurance companies blamed the aggressive Metro East trial bar. Most lawyers contended that the courts were not at fault. In recent years, the issue has spawned battles in the Illinois Legislature. It was in Madison County that Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2005 signed compromise legislation limiting the amount of money for pain and suffering that any doctor or hospital could be forced to pay in a lawsuit while also reforming the physician insurance industry."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9/27/07
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/
6F6FBF9BA4B9967A86257363000CD882?OpenDocument

As a Chicago medical Malpractice lawyer I have long experienced insurance comapanies that do not pay their claims until they absolutely have to pay. Consider this:

"We've known the insurance company game for a long time. We just didn't have any proof. David Berardinelli does. As homeowners, we've known that insurers have raised premiums while cutting back on coverage. We watched the big three in Texas — Allstate, State Farm and Farmers — demand ever higher prices while dropping big chunks of customers, such as anyone in Harris County who has a wood-frame house. And we've suspected that all of this was done in the name of profit, because we can see that Allstate's net income, for example, has doubled in the past decade despite catastrophes such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In 2001, while Berardinelli, a Santa Fe attorney, was pressing a lawsuit against Allstate in New Mexico, he obtained what have become known as the McKinsey documents. He's one of the few people outside of the insurance industry who's seen them, and he took more than 400 pages of notes while they were in his possession. He made some of those notes available to me. The documents outline a strategy developed by the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm in the early 1990s that, according to Berardinelli, shows how Allstate has a carefully crafted plan to deny, evade and delay paying claims."

Loren Steffy, Houston Chronicle 10/1/07
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5174420.html

"Hospitals of all sizes that that cover their primary professional liability risks through alternative risk-financing measures are keeping their claim frequency and severity rates to eight-year lows, according to a new study. The frequency of claims for the 1,000 facilities—part of 80 health care organizations—that participated in the study did not increase for the third consecutive year, reports the '2007 Hospital Professional Liability and Physician Liability Benchmark Analysis.' The report is published by Chicago-based Aon Corp. in conjunction with the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management. In addition, the severity of losses over the past year increased 3%, the lowest increase over the eight years that Aon and ASHRM have produced the report. Claim severity has fallen sharply over the past several years, from 8% in the 2004 study, to 6.4% in 2005, to 6% in 2006, according to the latest report. Based on those figures, Aon is advising hospital risk managers to anticipate a 3% increase in liability costs in 2008 before factoring in organic growth. That advisory rate also is the lowest over the history of the report."

Dave Lenckus, Business Insurance 10/2/07
http://www.businessinsurance.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=11231

“A jury awarded $6.1 million Friday to a woman who said she was forced to strip in a McDonald's back office after someone called the restaurant posing as a police officer. Louise Ogborn, 21 years old, had sued McDonald's Corp., claiming the fast-food giant failed to warn her and other employees about the caller who already struck other McDonald's stores and other fast-food restaurants across the country. Ms. Ogborn had been seeking $200 million. McDonald's attorneys argued the company was not responsible and contended the company was being sued because of its deep pockets. ‘Louise has stood up for what happened to her and what McDonald's failed to do for three-and-a-half years, and this jury just vindicated her completely,’ said her attorney, Ann Oldfather. McDonald's is evaluating whether to appeal the decision.”

Associated Press, Wall Street Journal 10/5/07 (Subscription Only)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119160859182050360.html

“Darrie Eason is a penetrating example of what's wrong with proposals to cap damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases. The high cost of malpractice insurance is a problem. But adding insult to patients' injuries by arbitrarily limiting jury awards is not the answer. Eason was told she had cancer. One double mastectomy later, doctors told her the devastating diagnosis was a mistake. Her tissue sample had been mislabeled. She never had cancer. Tragically, by then her breasts had been removed. If it's proved that her travail was caused by somebody's negligence, she can collect economic damages - lost wages and the cost of hospitalization, surgery, physical therapy and the like. But that just covers her expenses. So, what else is there? Whatever a judge or jury considers just compensation for her pain and suffering. Under current law, without caps, she could be awarded millions of dollars. Impose the cap sought by President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans, and she could get no more than $250,000.”

Newsday 10/4/07
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/
ny-vpmed045401035oct04,0,1623381.story

NORTHRIDGE, Calif., May 18, 2004 – Medtronic, Inc. today announced that its Diabetes division began notifying diabetic patients, healthcare professionals and distributors that it is conducting a nationwide recall of Quick-set® Plus infusion sets because of problems that can interrupt insulin flow to diabetics who use them. These problems have resulted in a number of serious injuries, including some hospitalizations.

The company is asking patients to contact its 24-Hour Help Line at (800) MINIMED (1-800-646-4633) to exchange any unused Quick-set Plus infusion sets for replacement sets available currently from Medtronic. In the event that it is necessary to continue use of the Quick-set Plus while replacement sets are in transit, Medtronic is recommending that patients monitor their blood glucose levels frequently and be prepared to treat any elevated glucose levels that may occur with injections. Patients are also being instructed to contact their healthcare professional in the event of excessively high or low glucose levels or with any questions about their care. Information regarding the exchange of Quick-set Plus infusion sets is available at www.minimed.com/QSP .

This recall applies to all Paradigm Quick-Set Plus models (MMT-359S6, MMT-359S9, MMT-359L6 and MMT-359L9) and lot numbers. This action affects only the Quick-set Plus infusion set; no other Medtronic devices or infusion sets are involved in this recall.

This notification is a follow-up to a voluntary action undertaken by the company in March 2004 in response to an increased number of complaints related to the use of the Quick-set Plus infusion set, which delivers insulin from an infusion pump to a patient’s body. The complaints involved problems with bending of the infusion set’s cannula or unintentional disconnection of the set at the insertion site. At that time, customers were provided with a Quick-set Plus tips guide and offered replacement infusion sets upon request. The company also discontinued selling the Quick-set Plus infusion sets in conjunction with this initial notification.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified this voluntary action as a Class I recall. The FDA defines a Class I recall as a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

On October 14, 2007, Medtronic, the nation's largest heart implant device manufacturer, announced a defect in the critical electrical "lead" component of its heart defibrillator. The New York Times reported on October 15, 2007, that the defect in this electrical wire, called the Sprint Fidelis, has resulted in hundreds of malfunctions and may have played a role in the death of five Medtronic defibrillator patients.

In a news release published by Medtronic, the company says that since the Sprint Fidelis lead was introduced in 2004, approximately 268,000 patients in the United States have been implanted with the lead as part of the Medtronic defibrillator. Affected models of the Sprint Fidelis defibrillation leads are 6930, 6931, 6948 and 6949. All patients who have received the Medtronic defibrillator since 2004 are urged to visit their doctor to check for potential fractures. A fracture in the lead can cause the device to misread heart rhythms, sending unnecessary, painful shocks to patients or worse, failing to provide a vital life-saving shock.

The New York Times reports:

Medtronic estimated that about 2.3 percent of patients with the Fidelis lead, or 4,000 to 5,000 people, would experience a lead fracture within 30 months of implantation. Those patients will require a delicate surgical procedure to replace the lead, experts said.

Medtronic said it would stop selling the lead and recall all leads not yet implanted.

Replacing leads on a heart device like a defibrillator is considered by experts to be far more dangerous than replacing the device itself. As a result, doctors said that patients were better off leaving the lead in place except in those instances where it has stopped functioning properly.