An Alabama family has made recent headlines after being awarded $16 million in a medical negligence lawsuit against an Alabama hospital. According to Johns Hopkins Hospital, medical malpractice ranks as the third leading cause of death – behind heart disease and cancer. No.1 of Jefferson, 2004-0451 (La.12/1/04), 888 So.2d 782. In part 1 of our 2-part series, we told you all about intentional torts.Now, we’re going to go over what you need to know about the other type of tort claim: unintentional torts. Generally speaking, the amount of damages a person gets from an unintentional tort case is less than that of an intentional tort lawsuit. The following cases are just a few where we have recently been successful for our clients: Tony’s Claim. Negligence is an unintentional tort wherein one party is injured as a result of the actions of another. Medical malpractice remains a major cause of personal injury and wrongful death in the United States. QUASI-INTENTIONAL TORTS EXAMPLE Breach of confidentiality A nurse releases the medical diagnosis of a client to a member of the press. Facts. Where plaintiff’s pharmacist expert was deemed incompetent to offer necessary causation testimony against the pharmacy defendants in an HCLA suit based on his inability to rule out possible causes of death in a complex medical case, summary judgment for those defendants was affirmed. Adventist Healthcare d/b/a Kettering Health Network (“KHN”).1 The complaint alleged common-law tort claims for invasion of privacy, negligence, negligence per se, negligent training, negligent supervision, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of Plaintiff Mullins, before undergoing a hysterectomy at a teaching hospital, crossed out the portion of the consent form that consented to “the presence of healthcare learners†and received assurance from the attending anesthesiologist that she would personally handle the anesthesia. During the surgery, as soon as Mullins was unconscious, the anesthesiologist permitted … In a traumatic example of the devastating effects of medical negligence, this story is just one of many highlighting the unfortunate reality of negligent healthcare. Day on Torts — Medical Negligence Category — Day on Torts. This related to Tony’s wife, Carol, who suffered appendicitis, that went unrecognised, despite her being seen by various doctors in the few weeks before her death aged 56. In this case, the Supreme Court will decide whether the Gonzales Act, codified as § 1089 in Title 10, waived any sovereign immunity preserved for medical battery cases under the Federal Tort Claims Act. R.S. As pertinent to this issue, the Medical Malpractice Act limits its definition of “malpractice” to “any unintentional tort or any breach of contract based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient․” La. Defamation of character A nurse tells a coworker that she believes a client has been unfaithful to the spouse. In contrast, unintentional torts occur when the wrongdoer does not intend to cause harm, but harm nevertheless results due to an accident caused by negligence. Unintentional tort claims are the more common type of tort claim that we deal with as personal injury lawyers. The Louisiana Supreme Court recently addressed this important distinction: Medical malpractice causes more than 250,000 every year. A Guide to Understanding Tort Law Part 2: Unintentional Tort Claims. Basic Statistics for Medical Malpractice Cases. Negligence Torts: Definition and Cases. 40:1299.41(13). Williamson v. Hospital Service Dist. For example, the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2009 that “the weight of the empirical evidence now demonstrates a link between tort reform and the use of healthcare services” [16]. Not every unintentional tort committed by a qualified health care provider falls within the confines of the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act (“LMMA”). Furthermore, it appears that medical malpractice tort reform does have a positive impact on the health care bottom line. Recent Cases of Medical Negligence. 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