Maine court questions liability panels

Physicians say the panels help resolve 70% of cases before going to trial. Some judges and lawyers say the process is costly, confusing and biased.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. Aug. 6, 2007.

A recent Maine high court ruling questions the usefulness of pretrial screening panels in medical liability cases.

Maine Medical Society officials say the 20-year-old law has helped weed out frivolous lawsuits and kept insurance premiums among the lowest in the New England region.

But in a June opinion, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's chief justice said amendments to and interpretations of the statute over the years have made it difficult for judges to rely on it to reduce needless litigation.

"It has, unfortunately, become a cumbersome process with unpredictable results that costs both plaintiffs and defendants money and time in a way that was not intended by the Legislature," Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley wrote, with one other justice agreeing that it is time for lawmakers to re-evaluate the system.

To bolster her point, Saufley referred to the case at hand, Smith v. Hawthorne. In August, unless a settlement is reached, it will proceed to its fourth trial in eight years because of split panel decisions.

But MMA Executive Vice President Gordon H. Smith (not related to the plaintiff) said that even one "bad" case is "an indictment of the medical malpractice system and demonstrates why we desperately need the panels." The MMA filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

Maine is among at least 16 states using panels to evaluate claims in typically nonbinding opinions before going to court, according to American Medical Association research.