Tennessee county asks state for tort reform

The Memphis-area board calls for the state to support "common sense" reform, including a $250,000 noneconomic damages cap.

By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. Dec. 5, 2005.

After watching several state legislative sessions go by with little progress on tort reform, one Tennessee county is banging the drum a little more loudly for its physicians.

The Board of County Commissioners in Shelby County, which includes Memphis, passed a resolution last month urging the Tennessee General Assembly to "support common-sense medical liability reform," with a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages.

While the county's resolution does not go so far as some municipalities that have passed their own tort reform ordinances, physicians see it as "a strong symbolic victory," said George Woodbury Jr., MD, a dermatologist in Memphis who is coordinating a grassroots lobbying effort for the Memphis Medical Society.

"This effort is meant to help our General Assembly understand this needs to be taken up without further delay," Dr. Woodbury said. "This provides a framework for the discussion."

The resolution, which passed by an 11-2 vote Nov. 7, also says tort reform legislation should include "full and fair compensation" for patients' economic losses, limitations for attorneys' contingency fees and a screening process for frivolous lawsuits.

Tennessee is one of 23 states that the AMA counts as showing signs of a medical liability crisis, in which escalating medical liability costs are forcing physicians to retire early, stop seeing high-risk patients or move to a different state. Some of the access-to-care problems caused by the medical liability crisis are evident around Memphis, where some specialists have dropped high-risk patients, doctors said.