The Senate Committee approved a bill requiring a medical expert certify a medical malpractice case as having merit before the lawsuit is filed. A previous provision in the law was foung unconstitutional this past December. The hopes of the bill is to keep frivilous medical malpractice lawsuits to a minimum. It still however, has to be voted on by the Senate.
Other states, including Illinois, have similar requirements of certification of medical malpractice lawsuits. While in theory this idea may be beneficial, in reality, even with a certification from a doctor that a medical malpractice lawsuit has merit, injured plaintiffs are still being faced with many jurors going into a trial with the assumption that medical malpractice lawsuits are frivolous. Jurors are bombarded with articles and news clips about frivolous lawsuits against doctors on an ongoing basis. No one is reporting that many of these lawsuits are only filed after they have been certified by a doctor as having merit.
So if a doctor is certifying the case saying it is not frivolous but the medical community is the still up in arms over frivolous lawsuits, then maybe it’s their own community they need to take issue with, not the innocent victims.
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