Ear surgery aborted unnecessarily: suit 22 years post OP.
CASE ON POINT: Parkhill v. Gordon, 2003 WL 22508492 A.2d--PA. ISSUE: In this extraordinary Pennsylvania case, a patient brought suit against an otolaryngologist 22 years after he aborted an attempt to surgically correct a defect in her ear. The physician gave his reason for aborting the surgery...

Unequal justice: the Supreme Court's failure to curtail selective prosecution for the death penalty.
United States v. Bass, 536 U.S. 862 (2002) I. INTRODUCTION In United States v. Bass, (1) the Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion, ruled on the standard of proof required for a defendant to obtain discovery to support a claim of selective prosecution for...

Are incentives paid to physicians by HMOs legal?
ARE INCENTIVES PAID TO PHYSICIANS BY HMOs LEGAL? This was just one of the issues with which the federal courts were confronted in this Pennsylvania case. The concept of allowing HMOs to literally "pay" physicians' incentives for controlling the costs (and thus the extent of care) incurred by patients...

Destruction of documents before proceedings commence: what is a court to do?
[The effective performance by courts of their adjudicative role depends on the availability of relevant evidence. In civil proceedings, the discovery process aims to ensure that such evidence is available. If documents that would be relevant evidence in a trial are destroyed, a fair adjudication is made difficult, if...

Forensic medicine: leveling the playing field, Part II.
"Man is the only animal that blushes ... or needs to." Mark Twain In Part I of this three-part series on the doctor defendant's deposition, the reality of the deposition as being the center stage importance of a medical malpractice action was argued. The doctor...

How to prepare for e-mail discovery in school litigation. (Technology Update).
Schools and districts can be compelled by the courts to produce e-mail correspondence. The National School Board Association's Technology Leadership News suggests six ways to prepare for such requests and minimize potential damage. 1. Create and enforce an electronic document policy that minimizes the amount of time...

Mixed decision for managed care industry. (News at Deadline).
A federal judge in Miami gave the go-ahead for a half dozen class-action suits on behalf o the nation's physicians against the managed care industry In a related move, U.S. District Judge Federic A. Moreno, denied class-action status to several suits being brought on behalf of patients. ...

MSHA secretly changes 27-year policy on releasing inspectors' notes.
Mine operators, miners, their families and the press will no longer be able to get MSHA inspector notes from a mine inspection, unless the operator or miner is willing to go through legal proceedings and the discovery process. This is according to a new MSHA policy unofficially...

Cooperation with a capital C?: Interpreting the SEC's new guidelines on enforcement assistance. (Legal Brief).
LAST OCTOBER, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an investigative report explaining its decision not to proceed against a public company that it had investigated for financial statement irregularities resulting from the misconduct of a subsidiary's controller, who the SEC did sanction. The investigative report is significant not for...

Document destruction after Arthur Andersen: is it still housekeeping or is it a crime?
The indictment and subsequent conviction of Arthur Andersen & Co. (1) has recently focused much attention on the previously little-known subject of document retention. The government charged that Andersen's auditors willfully obstructed justice when they destroyed thousands of Enron work papers as an SEC investigation loomed, but had not...