Caps on Damages Sound Good Until Tragedy Strikes Near You
Contributor
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I recently read an article relating to a news cast on Fox 28, in Indiana and it raised those sensitive hackles on the back of my neck.
The article was about Ashley Faloon and an auto accident that landed her in the hospital. She was recovering well from what were relatively minor injuries; when a nurse injected her IV line with insulin. Certainly, the nurses action was accidental; she certainly did not mean to cause Ashley to be profundly brain damaged. Although Ashley's care will amount to many millions of dollars over her lifetime, Indiana state law caps damages at $1.25 million. Sounds like a lot of money, right? It is a pittance when you consider that her care will exceed $15 to 20,000,000!
The fact is insurance companies are for profit businesses and they will do what they can to enhance that profit.They will adopt procedures for denying as many claims as they can get away with and they will whisper in doctors ears that ALL their problems stem from lawsuits filed by trial lawyers. Even in the face of insurance company executives testifying to legislatures that tort reform will have no effect on malpractice rates; doctors who are blinded by their programmed feelings for trial lawyers; campaign agressively to put caps on their patient's damages when they negligently injure their patients. They, of course, would never agree taht damages should be capped for injuring someone as a result of negligently running a stop sign; but can rationalize doing so for their own negligent acts.
I have watched injured victims harmed by an insurance industry that places profits over people. I am no "Polly Anna"; I understand that businesses must be carefully run to keep them healthy and able to keep its employees gainfully employed. The problem often is that there is never "enough" profit.
I have some tort reformer friends and they are consistently railing at me about "those trial lawyers"! Although I am not a lawyer, I have made trial lawyers my constant companions for thirty years; both defense and plaintiff. I have worked for insurance companies and left them to "come into the light". Like many of my "tort reformer" friends, I have been thankfully blessed not to have suffered any huge tragedies in my life so far. It is interesting that the same people who say they are for tort reform; are the very people who yell the loudest when tragedy sadly strikes one of their loved ones and that very tort reform they voted for makes the tragedy so much more profound and so much more damaging.