Although judicial elections tend to attract far less notice than top-of-the-ticket races, the scandalous “justice for sale” financing of Republican candidates to Ohio’s top court cries out for attention. The Democratic party is fielding two excellent candidates, Chief Justice Eric Brown and Appellate Judge Mary Jane Trapp, but GOP opponents Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justice Judith Lanzinger are once again riding a wave of campaign cash and independent expenditures by businesses and organizations whose interests are tied up in cases before the Ohio Supreme Court. The Justice at Stake campaign notes that Ohio Supreme Court races have cracked $1 million in TV spending, all of it benefiting Republicans.
New findings indicate that putting limits on malpractice awards and enacting similar tort reforms are unlikely to do much to curb the nation’s surging health care costs. In fact a new study, published last week in Health Affairs suggests that costs associated with medical malpractice are far less than the $650 billion figure (26% of all money spent on health care) cited by some Republicans who have made tort reform a cornerstone of their vision for “bending the cost curve” in health care. The newly calculated figure, $55.6 billion, represents just 2.4% of health costs.
According to NPR, “Longtime malpractice and patient safety researcher Michelle Mello of the Harvard School of Public Health [one of Health Affairs authors]” said that “some of the figures used during the recent health overhaul debate were ‘quite imaginative.’”
Jury finds doctor guilty in case, but that won’t bring 3-year-olds back
No matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to forget, Shannon Legge still hears the screams.
In the quiet of his home, in the middle of the night, his wife cried out his name.
Jenny Legge ran toward him, one of their twin sons limp in her arms.
“He’s not breathing!” Jenny screamed. “A.J.’s not breathing!”
That was just after 12:30 a.m. on April 19, 2006. And before dawn would break, Anthony “A.J.” Legge’s twin brother, Joshua, would stop breathing, too.
In a span of 48 hours, both children would die. They had just turned 3.
Jury members deliberated until well after dark Friday on a civil case before decid ing a local physician was at fault for the negligible death of two young boys.
The 3-year-old males, Anthony and Joshua Legge, both died from respiratory distress after a tonsillectomy and adenoidoctomy surgery on April 18, 2006 at Memori al Hospital of Union Coun ty. One boy died the night of the surgery and the other two days later. After a six hour deliberation Friday between 3:30 and 9:30 p.m., the Union County Common Pleas Court ruled the boy’s physician, Fred R. Leess IV, ultimately failed to meet the standard of care for the sur gery performed, which directly led to their deaths.
The jury also ruled Leess pay $1 million to the Legge family for each boy’s death, for a combined $2 million payout.
After two weeks of testimony, the civil trial of a local physician has gone to the jury.
The civil case against local doctor Fred R. Leess IV, is in the hands of the seven men and one woman on the jury.
Leess was sued by Jennifer Legge, the mother of Anthony (A.J.) and Joshua Legge, twins who both died following ton sillectomy and adenoidoc tomies performed by Leess at Memorial Hospital of Union County.
Legge, through her attorney, argued that Leess failed to meet the standard of care for the surgery performed on 3 year-old boys with breathing problems.
A decision yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court is good news for hundreds of Ohio women seeking damages from the makers of hormone-replacement drugs that they blame for causing their breast cancer, a Columbus attorney says.
“It’s a nice boost,” said Anne Valentine, part of a legal team representing more than 100 such plaintiffs. “We don’t have any false hope or expectation that these are going to be anything but knock-down, drag-out fights, but it’s good to have that decision.”
The high court left intact a jury’s award of $2.75 million in compensatory damages to an Arkansas woman who had sued Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Upjohn Co., both now subsidiaries of Pfizer Inc., claiming the companies’ widely prescribed menopause drugs caused her breast cancer.
Attorney Gerald Leeseberg of Columbus, representing the Ohio Association for Justice, said in opposition testimony that the current version of the bill still provides blanket immunity for negligent medical care on the part of emergency room personnel for any patients in any circumstance.
Mr. Leeseberg said only 12 claims were paid in Ohio in all of 2008 involving ER physicians, with the average payment $174,000. “It appears this is a solution without a problem,” he said in describing the bill. He said the measure would expressly prohibit recovery of any damages for wrongful death caused by the neglect of an emergency physician, and thus would violate the Ohio Constitution. “To the extent it could only apply to those who are injured from such neglect, it would violate constitutional equal protection guarantees,” Mr. Leeseberg said.
Lawyers can help facilitate changes that affect our society. Those changes can be either small or seismic but attorneys must realize the impact they can make on those who are charged with rendering verdicts and enacting legislation.
This was Gerald Leesebergs message in the Columbus Bar Associations BARbriefs publication. Leeseberg authored the article, “The Lawyer as Social Engineer” for the BARbriefs October, 2000 publication.
An Ohio State University freshman who had both his legs amputated last spring after he became infected with a flesh-eating bacteria has sued many of the doctors and nurses who treated him and the hospitals that employ them.
More than 20 parties are named in the lawsuit, including doctors at Ohio Health Corp., Riverside Methodist Hospital, and a doctor employed by OSU Medical Center.
The attorneys at Leeseberg & Valentine have once again been honored by being designated as “Super Lawyers” and “Rising Stars” in their specialty in the legal profession. This designation was made by Ohio Super Lawyers magazine and was bestowed on the attorneys by members of their profession without any input or solicitation by the firm. In addition, the firm itself has been designated as a 2010 “Best Law Firm” by the prestigious U.S. News & World Report, and Ms. Valentine has been named to the list of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Ohio and the list of the Top 25 Women Lawyers in Columbus. This recognition by others outside the firm is particularly gratifying because it is based on the continued success our attorneys and staff have achieved on behalf of our clients.
