Colorado Law Blog

A bill on Colorado medical malpractice claims that would have eased caps on court damages in lawsuits was gutted Monday by Colorado's House Judiciary Committee, which then approved what was left of the bill in a 7-5 vote. House Bill 1344, sponsored by Rep. Christine Scanlon, D-Dillon, if passed, will make medical malpractice insurers get prior approval from Colorado's insurance commissioner before they can raise premiums by more than 5 percent a year. The commissioner also could set hearings on proposed premium hikes when deemed necessary.

The original measure as it was written would have lifted restrictions on malpractice awards that Republican lawmakers put into place more than 20 years ago. The caps would have been changed to reflect inflation and other economic indicators. The issue has been the subject of an intense newspaper and television advertising campaign waged by medical interests, suggesting that victim's would not benefit as much as the trial lawyers.

The newly revised legislation changes how medical malpractice insurance is regulated, but it offers no help to victims who are injured by careless doctors.

Members of the committee heard more than four hours of testimony on HB 1344. As in past years, several victims of medical malpractice gave emotional testimony in support of the legislation. This year one of the witnesses was Sam Fishbein, husband of the late Leslie Fishbein, the well-known Denver furniture retailer and public face of Kacey Fine Furniture. Fishbein received an injection for back pain, but died when she suffered a cardiac arrest and a doctor could not resuscitate her.

Representatives for the Colorado Medical Society argued against raising caps according to inflation, as originally proposed in HB 1344. More strange is the fact they also even argued against the revised bill as costly and burdensome, though it serves to protect doctors from escalating premiums.

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Yesterday the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced a new $1 million television ad campaign in Colorado and four other states to oppose "card check" legislation in Congress that would change the rules for workers to unionize.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been aggressively running anti-consumer, anti-rights ads to serve its business membership for the past eight years. This is the same type of biased mis-information seen frequently during the 2008 campaign season. The U.S. Chamber's new ads opposing the "Employee Free Choice Act" are running in Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Virginia. Meanwhile, radio spots are running in Alaska and South Dakota.

The bill being attacked would allow workers to form a union local at their workplace if a majority signs union-authorization card, sidestepping the existing requirement that a secret-ballot election also be held. The measure is a high priority for labor unions, but vehemently opposed by many business groups. Labor says existing rules allow businesses managers too much of an opportunity to pressure workers not to form a union; businesses said the card-check bill would unfairly tilt the scales toward unions.

The U.S. Chamber hopes to sway public opinion on the measure with the misleading ads before Congress take up the matter.

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With only five weeks left in the session, a new bill has been introduced which would allow greater recovery for victims of medical malpractice in Colorado. Under current law, a person suing for malpractice can recover only $300,000 in noneconomic damages. Non-economic damages include "pain and suffering" and disfigurement or physical impairment. All damages in medical malpractice cases, including actual medical costs, are capped at $1 million, though a judge can approve a higher award. The proposed bill would raise the level of the cap on noneconomic damages and provide for an annual inflationary increase.

The hard cap on noneconomic damages was set at $250,000 in 1988 and then adjusted to $300,000 in 2003. Advocates for victims say the cap should be raised to reflect inflation.

Last year, a similar bill will not be carried by Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, who is also an attorney and who became speaker of the House this year. Carroll and Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, co-sponsored a bill last year to allow injured patients to receive nearly 60 percent more in medical malpractice lawsuits. Backed by the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee, which was headed by Carroll, because of insufficient support from Democrats.

Officials with Gov. Bill Ritter's office said the Democratic governor generally supports the concept of raising the medical malpractice caps for inflation but so far this year has not taken a position on any specific proposals.

In a four-column paid advertisement that ran yesterday in The Denver Post, the Colorado Medical Society - which represents 6,770 physicians - blasted the pending legislation as bad for health care and only good for lawyers. This of course ignores the victims of medical malpractice, and disregards all recent studies which demonstrate that litigation contributes very little to over-all health care costs, see Study Exposes Medical Care Crisis Fairy Tale.

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Celebrities may feel safer surrounded by bodyguards, but unlike the image created the Nickeback song - even if you are a rock star, athletes and entertainers who employ bodyguards cannot ignore on-the-job misconduct.

At least, not according to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The court ruled unanimously on March 24 to uphold a verdict against National Basketball Association star Allen Iverson, accused of negligent supervision after a bodyguard roughed up a man at a Washington nightclub. Iverson, formerly a member of the Colorado Nuggets, was found liable for $260,000 in damages.

The attorney for the victim suggests that the decision "sends a clear message" to celebrities that inaction can create liability. However the Iverson decision is relatively narrow. The court found Iverson negligent because he was present at the fight, standing on a couch -- and doing nothing.

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After a very poor report on response time for first responders last year, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has announced plans for cutting response times for basic life-support situations nearly in half and those for advanced life support by more than a third from their dismal rates recorded last year. The plans came from a task force charged with improving the city's emergency medical response.

If the mayor succeeds in hitting those targets this year, the city will come into compliance with the standards of the National Fire Protection Association. The administration unveiled the new targets along with new reporting standards during a committee meeting of the City Council on Wednesday.

In December, Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher reported that the city's emergency response system was not meeting industry standards. The audit found that the city's basic life-support response, the responsibility of firefighters, occurred within 10 minutes and 29 seconds 90 percent of the time after an emergency call was answered. The National Fire Protection Association recommends a response within 6 minutes and 30 seconds 90 percent of the time.

The city's advanced life-support response, the responsibility of paramedics at Denver Health Medical Center, occurred within 15 minutes and 48 seconds 90 percent of the time after an emergency call was answered. The NFPA recommends the response occur within 10 minutes and 30 seconds 90 percent of the time.

By November, the city plans to start meeting the NFPA targets. A monitoring group will make quarterly reports measuring performance, she said.

The city's emergency response has been a hot political issue over the past year. Councilman Michael Hancock has been especially critical, questioning whether the city was adequately responding to emergencies at Denver International Airport and in growing neighborhoods such as Green Valley Ranch, both in his district.

The city has deployed an ambulance to the airport this year to help quell some of the concerns. Hancock applauded the mayor's suggested reforms Wednesday and said the system was "light-years" ahead of where it was last year.

Many of the improvements will come at the front end by streamlining how the city answers emergency calls and by eliminating redundancies. The city plans to buy a computer program that will help automate how workers handle emergency calls. Currently, they rely on index cards to query people calling for help, hardly state-of-the-art response technology.

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