Wisconsin Tort Reform Attorney Ric Domnitz on Tort Reform
By Milwaukee personal injury attorney Noah Domnitz of Domnitz & Domnitz, S.C. posted in Tort Reform on Monday, February 14, 2011.
In our last blog post, we highlighted some points from an article recently published by Ric Domnitz on the topic of tort reform. Mr. Domnitz recently authored another article further commenting on tort reform and some of the confusing aspects of tort law under conservative legislative control. Domnitz expresses, “…I fully accept that the sweeping Republican success at the polls in November has inevitable ramifications on legislation. My continuing inquiry is whether the new legislature will adhere to traditional conservative tenets when passing or repealing laws for our beloved state.”
He offers a situation in the article that describes what would happen if one of your parents were to die as the result of hospital negligence. “Let us suppose that while intending no harm, one of these medical providers makes an error which is readily acknowledged as being a deviation from the standard of care. Something that is clearly a mistake, clearly outside the well defined methods of caring for my mother, and as a result, she dies (heaven forbid). Now, my conservative neighbors have always stood for the proposition that personal responsibility is a basic plank in their platform for our community. Accountability is to be taken seriously and people need to be responsible for their conduct. Do you know that regardless of how blatant the error was that claimed my mother’s life, no matter how many pre-eminent medical experts agree that the error by the health care provider was a cause of my mother’s demise, no matter, even, if the offending provider admitted to his/her error and that the error caused the death, in the state of Wisconsin there would be no legal recourse for the death. No claim, no lawsuit, no recovery; in short, no responsibility for the death.” He explains that this terrible reality would happen because “…in Wisconsin the only persons authorized to bring a medical malpractice wrongful death claim are a surviving spouse or a minor child.”
Wisconsin Tort Reform Attorney Ric Domnitz on Tort Reform
Domnitz’s article also talks about other “confusing state of affairs in Wisconsin.” He writes:
“In this hypothetical situation a physician, say a surgeon, performs an operation on a Wisconsin citizen and unintentionally makes a surgical error which results in his patient being rendered quadriplegic. Upset as a result of this unintended medical error, the doctor is careless in backing out of the driveway of the hospital and strikes a pedestrian with his car and the same injury (quadriplegia) results to this physician’s second victim of the day. Sadly both victims must spend the remainder of their lives wheelchair bound, unable to control their bowel or bladder, unable to use their arms or hands in a functional manner, and both suffer the humiliating need to depend upon others for the most basic aspects of personal hygiene and other care. I need one of my conservative friends (and I have many) to explain why the party of personal responsibility, of accountability, the party that believes it important that we all live by the same set of rules, why they countenance the state of the law in Wisconsin that allows the car accident victim to make an unrestricted claim for his/her pain and suffering, but the medical victim (damaged by a physician licensed by the state to practice medicine on the basis of advanced education and proven expertise) has his/her claim for pain and suffering restricted by an artificial cap.”
We encourage you to read the entire piece, which can be found at the link below.
Source: WISN “More Tort Confusion” 2/1/2011
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