Palm Coast Injury Law Blog : Florida Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Philip J. Chanfrau

I was consulted today by the mother of  a young girl who went to the hospital Emergency room in Sarasota three times in less than a week.  Each time she was sent home with little or no care.  Turns out she had acute pancreatitis. Within days it caused anoxic brain damages and she went into a coma for two months.

  It was all preventable with reasonable medical care, and should have never happened at all. She spent months in a rehab center. Miraculously she is now just learning to walk and talk all over again.

A very fine medical malpractice law firm was called to take the case. However, the emergency room in the Sarasota Hospital where this all happened is part of the State of Florida.  It is a state agency, just like Halifax Hospital and some other regional hospitals.  The State of Florida allows lawsuits to be filed for up to $100,000 for damages caused by its hospitals.  This is called Sovereign Immunity.  Because of the immunity, and the fact that it would cost at least $100,000 to sue the Sarasota Hospital, the medical malpractice claim was rejected by the medical malpractice law firm.  Economic realities make it impossible to sue on a contingency fee basis even where the damages are horrendous and a person's life is taken away.

The $100,000 max is a type of cap on damages which most people don't know about.  There are other caps too, like the cap on punitive damages which most jurors don't know about. Juries are not told about these caps because the legislature will not allow judges to explain the law to juries: it makes the juries mad at lawyers and judges.  Their anger should be at the stupidos in the Florida legislature. The legislators who bow and scrape for the lobbysists  think they are doing a good thing protecting the public purse.  What is really wild about this is that oftentimes the hospital has a $10,000,000 insurance policy to fall back on.  But it can't be touched.  Duh?

When someone is severely injured guess who winds up footing the bill when there is no insurance?  The taxpayers do, through welfare programs like medicaid and social security disability. That is what is called government malpractice. 

in my opinon the only way to fix it is to elect people who care more about others than the bottom dollar.

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This important question is at the top of every client's list.  News  of multi-million dollar verdicts offer little or no explanation of how the jury was able to come up with huge amounts.  People watching or reading get the impression that juries are out of control, and that plaintiffs are getting rich on flimsy cases.  People think their insurance premiums are skyrocketing based on ridiculous juries and their greedy trial lawyers, or lazy judges.  There is a legal system and Courts all over the land know there are maximum amounts of damages which juries can award.  Too bad the Media doesn't know.

It will come as a surprise that the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient Code from Babylon, set the first limits on retribution.    At Code section 196 we find the famous "eye for an eye" quote. "If a man put out the eye of another, his eye shall be put out."   From that time on damages had to be equal to what was taken away: an eye for an eye.  The injured person gets back what was taken away.  Since the award is for a whole lifetime of problems he gets compensated for those problems now instead of coming back every couple of years for more.

The Florida  Model Verdict form defines the 3 types of damages you can get into 1) past and future medical bills, 2) past and future lost income or wages, and 3) quality of life losses for the past and future.  For example if a person has been injured and can't work, has to have surgery, and will never be able to use their right arm again for the next 30 years, all of the fact are given to a jury and the jury literally fills in the blanks of a Verdict form.

If the Verdict form is filled in wrong, with too little or too much money, the Lawyers get to argue to the Judge why it needs to be fixed, and the Court has the discretion to adjust the award up or down. If not done correctly there can be an appeal.

So the next time you hear about a large damages award, you will know the Jury and the Court were just filling in the blanks and doing their  duty.  Shame on the media for not telling you the back story.

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