Are There Frivolous Medical Malpractice Suits?

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Transcript

You’ve heard things termed a frivolous lawsuit. I’m here to tell you that in medical malpractice there can be no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit. The states that we practice in have placed safeguards in the law to prevent people from bringing frivolous claims.

For example, in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and again in most states, laws have been placed saying that we have to obtain the opinion from a medical professional, from a doctor, to say that the doctor we anticipate suing has deviated from acceptable standards of care. In other words we have to find an actively practicing physician who will say there has been malpractice. That is the safeguard that exists. If we don’t do that we can be thrown out of court and we will be thrown out of court.

So the term frivolous lawsuit is really a nonexistent item. The other factor is that these cases are extremely expensive to bring. We have to pay these doctors to give us their opinions, for their time, their time to review our files and medical records, their time to participate in trials. And, as you all know a physician’s time is expensive. So no lawyer, even if he did get a case [without] merit, would go forward and bring for a non-meritorious case. That lawyer would very soon lose and essentially that prevents any frivolous case from being brought in court.