Fighting back against frivolous lawsuits

Physicians are contesting attorneys who file meritless lawsuits. When doctors win, it is good for those who deliver care and those who receive -- and pay for -- it.

Editorial. June 18, 2007.

When patients step into an examination room or are wheeled into the operating room, they expect their physicians to follow medical standards of care.

That reasoning also should apply to the legal profession, which too often is a third party in medical care. Shouldn't lawyers be held to equivalent standards of professionalism?

Physicians are expected to evaluate their patients thoroughly and act in their best interest. Lawyers are expected, within reasonable limits, to investigate claims that their clients bring to them and file only lawsuits that have merit.

But doctors know that doesn't always happen.

We're not talking about medical liability cases where there's a legitimate medical difference of opinion. We're talking, for example, about the shotgun-approach liability lawsuits in which lawyers name every physician who crossed a patient's path -- even if that physician obviously had nothing to do with an alleged medical error, and perhaps is even the one responsible for the patient getting better.

Ohio is a great example of a place where physicians are taking lawyers to task when they feel they have been sued frivolously.

Last month an Ohio appellate court sanctioned Cleveland-area lawyer John E. Duda, upholding a lower court decision that he pay orthopedic surgeon Michael A. Banks, MD, $4,500 for the costs of defending a unwarranted lawsuit. Another $4,000 went to the hospital where the alleged incident occurred, Southwest General Health Center.