Expert Witness Blog
National Medical Consultants represents a panel of over 1900 distinguished specialists in all areas of medicine including perinatal injuries care expert witnesses. In Medical malpractice liability reform-no easy task experts at National Medical Consultants continue from January 1st blog:
Only 13 states still use the combined form of the joint and several liability doctrine for medical malpractice cases. (3) Many states that have modified the doctrine will enforce joint and several liability, however, when the health care provider is found to have acted “in concert with others” or with “intentional malice” or when the health care provider’s acts attributed to more than 50% of the harm. (3) Additionally, states such as California and Ohio apply joint and several liability to only the economic portion of the damages and not to the noneconomic portion. (3)
One rationale for maintaining the original application of joint and several liability is to protect patients from having to bring cases against every health care provider who participated in the act that resulted in harm. (10) Conversely, the rationale for modifying the joint and several liability rule is to decrease the number of additional court cases that will result when the single defendant attempts to recover damages from the other health care providers involved. In addition, although joint and several liability may encourage defendants to settle out of court to avoid being found responsible for the entire damage award, proponents of the rule-modification strategy contend that “it has had the effect of turning lawsuits into all out searches to find the most financially lucrative defendants.”