kane

Tort reform is actually a pretty bad thing in many cases. Watch a documentary called Hot Coffee. It is mostly about the woman that won a million dollars for being burned by hot coffee she got at McDonald's (if you think hers was a frivolous lawsuit it will likely change your opinion), but it also covers other areas of how tort reform has hurt people.

Here is one example. A woman was pregnant with twins. Her doctor told her that the babies shared a placenta. Apparently with twins sometimes they share a placenta and sometimes they each have their own. If they have their own you can take your time with the birth. If they share one as soon as the first baby is out, the other needs to be coming because it is now lacking oxygen.

So, she goes into labor a few weeks early. Her doctor is out of town. She goes to the hospital where they do an ultrasound. They tell her not to worry and that both babies have their own placenta. Supposedly they had three people check it and they told her that her doctor likely didn't see them both which was common earlier in the pregnancy.

Well, they were wrong. She did only have one. So the first baby came out fine. The second one was deprived of oxygen for several minutes and suffered irreversible brain damage. The baby spent months in the hospital and will need hands on care for the rest of his life. The family had to get their house modified to fit his needs (wheelchair etc) and pay for nursing and around the clock care. Add in the huge cost of all of this that went above and beyond what the insurance was willing to pay (lifetime cap was breached).

They sued the hospital and won. They didn't ask for an obscene amount. They wanted their medical bills paid and came up with an average cost to care for the kid per year and multiplied it by the number of years most experts expect someone in his condition to live. They were awarded the amount they were asking for. Then the judge overturned it because a law in that state put caps on how much could be paid out for medical malpractice. They basically ended up with enough to pay the medical bills and fix their house and will have to pay out of pocket for his care.

The filmmakers make a strong case against tort reform. In a supposedly capitalistic system the courts are the only real way that any average citizen can punish companies who make products that hurt people or even kill people. Yes, there are frivolous lawsuits, but in many cases the tort reforms are driven by companies who want to be able to do whatever they want and only expose themselves to limited liability.