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Letter to the New Jersey Star Ledger news paper commenting on the plight of OBGYN's in this State, dated 9/27/04
Dear Ms Campbell,
I read your excellent piece on the crisis within the crisis as I call it. Every physician in the State of New Jersey is affected by the "malpractice crisis", but the OBGYN is besieged.
No other specialty is assaulted like the physician who brings life into this world. Try going to the teaching centers and ask, how many OBGYN residents are coming back to New Jersey to practice?
The response will astound you and should be cause for alarm for our children and our grand children. Who will deliver the babies?
The reason why rates are so high in New Jersey goes back to 1974 when a decision was made by our New Jersey supreme court, now known as the "Rova Farms Case".
Essentially it provided insurance companies act in the best interest of their insured. The plaintiff Bar covets this decision as it insures high value cases are settled without regard to a breach in the Standard of Care.
It is no surprise over half of all significant cases settled are OGYN related. The OBGYN sees the shoulder dystocia claim, the "brain damage" claim and various cancer cases including; ovarian, breast and cervical.
These cases all involve women who are relatively young and whose services are valued quite high. In other words they are very attractive to the
plaintiff attorney. The "brain damage" claims bring in awards in the 5
million and up range.
The irony is most of the time there is absolutely no negligence, only a fear the claim will exceed the Physician's policy thus forcing the carrier to
settle.
As cases get settled rates go up, quite simple but only part of the story.
Plaintiff attorneys are disingenuous in their public remarks; in private they know it is a lottery system.
You see they receive a settlement approximately 20-22% of the time, hardly an indication of rampant malpractice. With the cost of bringing a claim to fruition in excess of $20,000, they only screen high value cases. This is where the expert comes in; experts get them to a jury. This is when sympathy and fear play a major role.
Suggest taking away "Rova" or "bad faith" as known in the industry and watch the attorneys become apoplectic.
Most specialties see their cases settled 15-20% of the time, do the plaintiff's attorneys really believe OBGYN's commit more malpractice?
Their cases get settled as much as 40% of the time. Why because on average they bring 2-3 times the amount of settlement.
In 28 years of handling over 60,000 claims and monitoring 6000 trials I had defense experts on almost every OBGYN claim, all of whom were willing to testify without reservation. I too was guilty of settling totally defensible cases.
New Jersey needs to adopt "Bad Faith "tenets used in other States, most
notably our neighbor New York.
That is in order to find a carrier guilty of Bad Faith there must be gross
negligence in their handling of the claim. The court must also protect the
doctor from personal loss by limiting the award to the amount of coverage in place.
I was the former VP of claims for the largest Medical Liability Carrier in
this State, I would be happy to speak with you and feel free to send this to
your editorial staff for printing.
Peter Leone, President
EDGE Professional Liability Services
250 D Corporate Court
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
P: 908-222-2275
F: 908-222-2299
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