Tort Reform: An Alternative Proposal

I have been a medical malpractice defense attorney for the past 25 years and, in terms of disclosure, earn a living by virtue of defending such cases and so to some extent I am invested in the medical malpractice system. I have also had a somewhat unique opportunity to view the system at work through my own and my clients’ eyes. I have watched, as have many of us in the field, as our clients have found it increasingly difficult to survive due, in part, to the system under which we operate and thus have supported initiative 131 of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Medicaid Reform proposal.

With the April 1, 2011, vote on initiative 131 looming on the horizon, it is perhaps a propitious time to address the aspects of the tort reform legislation proposed by this initiative, which relate primarily to a fund for impaired newborns and caps on pain and suffering. While many feel that some sort of tort reform in the medical malpractice area is overdue in New York, the proposal contains two approaches that seek, to some extent, to alter the way our civil justice system operates by modifying the procedure for resolving disputes in the case of neurologically impaired infants and by limiting compensation in cases of significant pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases in general.