[rayiner]

> Large verdicts have been delivered where no or minimal injury was suffered.

We live in a country of 300 million people. Every permutation of things that can happen has happened. But that doesn't mean that large verdicts "where no or minimal injury was suffered" happen often enough to account for a significant share of medical malpractice payouts.

There was a Harvard study that looked at this issue pretty systematically, and concluded that the idea of "systematically" "large verdicts against defendants who are unlikely to have done anything wrong" does not fit the data: http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2006-releases/.... Most importantly, claims are about as likely to get denied despite the presence of error as they are to get paid despite the absence of error. (So improving the accuracy of the system would not necessarily decease payouts.)

[TeMPOraL]

Is the monetary amount of payouts important at all for the issue at large?

The doctors/soon-to-be-doctors I've talked to/read aren't worried about the amount of money that leaves hospitals in malpractice payouts. They're worried that it's too easy to sue a doctor / hospital over arbitrary fabricated bullshit and win.

[hobbyjogger]

That's essentially Rayiner's point--focusing on large payouts is not an effective response to this concern.

In states with a cap on the maximum medmal claim, the cap often "saves" the defendant money in situations where docs/hospitals really did screw up badly. But that cap has not effect on small, frivolous lawsuits where the doc/hospital weren't at fault.

[LorenPechtel]

Consider what used to be the poster-boy for the lawyers blaming the insurance system here:

$6 million verdict that was still being fought in the courts many years later rather than simply paid.

Oops, the reality: Trial #1: The woman was determined to be 90% at fault for her baby's problems, the law here doesn't let you collect if you're found more than 50% at fault. Trial #2, this time filed in the name of the baby. Still 90% to the woman. However, the jury assigned 5% to one doctor who examined her once several hours before the birth. He's the only one with anything, the whole $6 million verdict landed on him.

If that's what the lawyers consider a good case...