Year in Review – 2011 (My 14 favorite posts)

These were my 14  favorites from the past year, with the ledes. Favorite does not mean happy, it just means that they were meaningful to me as I wrote them. This is based on purely on personal preference, not page views, and I think fairly represents a cross section of this blog, focusing on policy, legal decisions and my own brand of whimsy:

The New Congress and the Constitution (Will they really defend it?) (1/6/11):

Today a Republican majority takes control of the House of Representatives. And their first order of business is to read the Constitution. And they want every new piece of legislation to set forth which part of the Constitution authorizes each bit of legislation.

But will Republicans really follow the Constitution when it comes to tort “reform?” My bet is no…

Bloomberg: City’s Tort Victims Should Bear Own Costs (1/27/11):

In an interview with me yesterday just after a speech before the New York State Bar Association on the issue of “tort reform,” Mayor MikeBloomberg said that victims of New York City’s negligence should bear their own costs. “It’s just too much for us to compensate these people, we think the better policy is for those who were injured by our negligence to take care of it themselves.”….

The Million Dollar “Loss of Consortium Claim” (2/3/11):

A blockbuster decision, of sorts, emerged quietly from the Appellate Division (Second Department) last week. In it, the appellate court evaluated a jury verdict designed to compensate for 11 months of injuries between the time of malpractice and death. And part of that decision was $1,000,000 for loss of consortium to the husband…

New York To Cap Medical Malpractice Awards? (An Open Letter to the Legislature) (3/1/11):

Dear New York State Legislators:

Deeply hidden from public view inside a report from the New York State Department of Health is a proposal to place an artificial $250,000 cap on medical malpractice pain and suffering claims. That report was given to Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week. The proposal is tucked inside something called the Medicaid Redesign Team, and was authored by insurance companies and medical institutions. There were no patient representatives on the committee.

You should soundly reject this anti-consumer bill on both public policy and monetary grounds…

Does Tort “Reform” Kill Patients? (3/15/11):

Two questions today as New York ponders putting a $250K cap on medical malpractice awards among its “reform” measures:

Question 1: Has medical malpractice tort “reform” ever saved a life?

Answer: No. OK, that one was easy. So-called reforms merely strip rights from the injured, they do zippo to improve medical care.

Question 2: Does medical malpractice tort “reform” kill patients?

Answer: Yes…

April Fool’s Day Deconstruction (A 23-Blog Conspiracy) (4/2/11):

It shouldn’t be legal. To have so much fun.

OK, so today is April 2nd and that means a deconstruction of the April Fool’s Day hoax on this blog, and as it happens, the blogs of 22 others…

Joseph Rakofsky — I Have An Answer For You (5/18/11):

I’ve been sued. I’m 51 years old and this is a first for me, both personally and professionally.

And it flows from a post I wrote last month about the depths to which some attorneys will sink in their marketing, that also happened to mention that Joseph Rakofsky was incompetent as a lawyer. Also, that he had an ethical issue regarding an email he sent to an investigator asking him to “trick” a witness. He sued me for defamation…

40 Years Ago Today (Apollo 15, Road Trips, and Instant Everything) (7/26/11):

I’m going to start off topic today to reflect on my youth and the time we drove from New York  to Florida when I was 11. As one of my older brothers likes to remind me, we drove  when I-95 wasn’t complete, using US-1 as we drove down the Eastern seaboard for a family vacation. My father snapped a photo of a sign that said “Future Home of Disney World.” (Eventually I’ll find a legal point for this post, don’t worry.)

It was on that trip,  40 years ago today, that we saw Apollo 15 blast off toward the Moon.

September 11. The NYC Marathon. And Vaginas. (Yes, they are related) (9/11/11):

I know what you’re  thinking. How can September 11th, the NYC Marathon and vaginas be related? Trust me. They are. And it won’t take long to explain…

Reach the Beach Relay (And Assumption of Risk) (9/18/11):

Did you ever want to go racing along rural roads in New Hampshire at 2 a.m., guided only by a headlamp, some signs, and the blinking butt-light of others?  And several miles later you get to climb into a van full of other sweaty, smelly runners wanting to do the same thing? I thought so…

The Failure of Medical Malpractice Caps (Healthcare Costs Rise in Texas) (10/14/11):

Public Citizen released a report this week on the abject failure of a $250,000 medical malpractice cap put in place by  Texas in 2003. Why is this is important? Because as I discussed  two days ago, so-called conservatives are trying to expand federal power to implement a similar scheme on the federal level.

So it’s important to note that such a scheme fails not only on the constitutional level as viewed from exercising federal power over state claims, but that it fails on a state-wide level as well in that it does not lower healthcare costs as it was intended to do. It may lower the number of malpractice suits by its grant  of protections and immunities to those that negligently injure others, but it doesn’t improve healthcare costs…

Five Years of Blogging (And Happy Thanksgiving) 11/22/11:

My five-year blogging anniversary slipped by last week without me noticing. Having now noticed, I’d like to interrupt this blog to make an important announcement…

NY Top Court Reshapes Auto Accident Law (Revamps The Way Courts Determine “Serious Injury”) (11/22/11)

Last month I wrote about three cases being argued in New York’s Court of Appeals that had the potential to reshape the entire face of auto accident litigation and the definition of “serious injury.” That decision has now come down, and it reverses growing trends in the lower appellate courts that had thrown out cases as a matter of law if they didn’t have a doctor to show a “contemporaneous” loss of motion, to come within the “serious injury” threshold for the No-Fault law. The courts were refusing to allow juries to act as fact finders…

Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse (And the Brutality of Damage Caps) (12/21/11):

Back in August a stage collapsed at the Indiana State Fair as the band Sugarland was about to take the stage. Seven were killed and dozens more injured. And now the State of Indiana is waltzing away from that tragedy having paid a mere $5M in total to 63 of the 65 victims and their families. For the families of those killed, a paltry $300K. If one of those killed or badly injured was a parent, that money will vanish quickly.

Why $5M? Because Indiana decided to limit its responsibility when it handed itself this brand of immunity and protection. A State distancing itself from its own responsibilities as people are killed on its property under its watchful eye? Sounds an awful lot like the old Soviet Union…

And the most popular post, based on page views? That goes to this quickie I did about Dominic Barbara being suspended. It garnered over 27,000 page views. Because it was brilliantly written? No. Because he was a regular on the Howard Stern show and Stern’s website linked to it. One month after it was written. Go figure.