Study finds what Kentucky Medical Malpractice Lawyers know to be true
I think the key phrase here is “perhaps unfairly so”. Anyone who has tried a number of medical malpractice cases in Kentucky knows this to be true. Try enough cases, and you are going to lose one. Justice is often elusive when the defendant is an MD. I recently tried a medical malpractice case to a Louisville jury where the doctor made a medical error and wrote a prescription for over 10 times the recommended initial dose. My client nearly died and suffered excrutiatingly painful injuries and permanent scarring. But the jury bought the defense theory that this could have happened even if the proper dosage had been prescribed and found against the plaintiff. They completely ignored the fact that the prescription error made it likely that she would suffer these injuries, whereas it would have been very unlikely had the prescription been correct.
And justice eluded my client. “Unfairly so”. No perhaps about it.
Malpractice Juries Tend to Side More With Doctors, Researcher Finds
Charles Toutant
New Jersey Law Journal
April 26, 2007Popular belief, at least in medical communities, holds that juries in medical malpractice cases tend to side with plaintiffs, even where the case against a doctor is a weak one.
But jurors actually tend to believe doctors more than they do plaintiffs, says a law professor who examined numerous data on medical malpractice litigation, including cases in New Jersey.
Philip Peters Jr., of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, concluded that juries treat doctors favorably, "perhaps unfairly so," and are more likely than even fellow physicians to defer to a doctor's opinion.
Law.com - Malpractice Juries Tend to Side More With Doctors, Researcher Finds.
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