AHLA's Speaking of Health Law

The Lighter Side of Health Law – April 2022

April 26, 2022 AHLA Podcasts
AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
The Lighter Side of Health Law – April 2022
Show Notes Transcript

AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments. 

To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.

Speaker 1:

This episode of HL, a speaking of health law is brought to you by HLA members and donors like you. For more information, visit American health law.org.

Speaker 2:

Hi, I'm norm Taber with this month's edition of the lighter side of health law Greg's list. This is about Greg's list. Not to be confused with Craig's list. Greg is Greg Neil, the Tennessee hospital CEO, who was so used to ribbon cuttings and other openings that he opened a surgical procedure by opening the patient. That's right. He made the first incision and alive sleeping surgical patient. Here's a list of the bad things that have followed. I call it Greg's list. First, Greg was fired. Second, the surgeon who let him do it was fired. Then everyone inside Greg, the surgeon and the hospital were all sued for various forms of negligence. Then they were all sued for medical malpractice. Now Greg has been sued for assault, but that wasn't enough because Greg used a scalpel it's assault with a deadly weapon and as icing on the cake, the patient's lawyer insists Greg committed, not only civil wrongs, but a crime all in all. I'd say Greg has given surgery by non-physician administrators, a bad name. Now we know why everyone who I tuition at Yale medical school is about$6,000 or a year higher than the average medical school. If so news reports early of this month provide at least a partial answer. It seems a Yale med school administrator, miss Jamie Petro has been dipping into school funds. She's pleaded guilty to stealing 40 million. You heard correctly 40 million Jamie would order computer devices and tablets, supposedly for the school. When they arrived, she would sell them to an out-of-state business. Then deposit the proceeds in a bank account of her own business. Why didn't anybody notice the theft before it amounted to 40 million? Well, Jamie was patient. She had authority for purchases up to$10,000 each. So she kept all her orders below that amount. But of course, that raises the question why nobody noticed the sheer number of her purchases after all, if her purchases below$10,000 totaled 40 million, there must have been over 4,000 purchase orders. And if the average iPad cost a thousand dollars, Jamie could have ordered 40,000 of them. Wouldn't you think someone would notice my shot and Freud shot Andreu is the term for taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune. I don't, it's a bad thing, but I can't help giving into it from time to time. Here's an example. I've always been a little jealous of securities lawyers. They always seem to be involved in multi-million or billion dollar deals. They get their names in the business section of the newspaper. They go to lavish closing dinners and their offices are full of those nifty loose sight paperweights with tiny securities documents inside them. Plus they seem to dress better than the rest of us. So I couldn't help feeling a little SMU. When I read about a mistake by securities lawyers for Barclay's bank, they filed a shelf registration statement with the SCC four 20 billion. That meant that Barclays could sell$20 billion in investment products. Without going back to the S E all the securities lawyers had to do was keep track of the sales to know when they were getting close to the 20 billion limit. Only they didn't do it probably too busy rearranging those paper weights. When they finally did get around to it, the total was$35 billion, 15 billion of excess, and therefore unregistered sales. The remedy Barclays must buy back the extra 15 billion of securities at the original sales price. It makes me glad I went into health law. I've made my share of mistakes, but I never cost a client$600 million. Well, not all at once. When a slip and fall, isn't just a slip and fall. I've always thought of a slip and fall against a hospital as a good example of ordinary negligence, rather than medical malpractice. And apparently Mary Evans' lawyer thought the same thing, but we were both wrong. Mary alleged, that she was in the ER, suffering from seizures when she needed the bathroom, she was walking toward it when she fell and injured herself. Well, the Kentucky court of appeal agreed with the hospital's argument. That Mary's case was a med mal case, and therefore required that she submit proof that she had consulted with a medical expert before filing suit, but she hadn't submitted such proof. So her case was dismissed. The reasoning Mary was alleging that the ER staff should not have allowed her to walk unaided. They should have taken her to the bathroom in a wheelchair that made the staff's medical judgment central to the case. The case is Mary Evans versus Baptist health Madisonville, not my type. Recently, the DC court of appeals made a pronouncement about the types that likes and doesn't like the types that likes are times new Roman and century. The type it doesn't like at all is Garand the pronouncement reads certain type faces such as century and times. New Roman are more legend than others, particularly Garand, which appears smaller than the other two type phases use of this type phase is discouraged. So if you're filing in the DC court of appeals, remember that Garand is the wrong type stick with times new Roman or century. Personally, I think Garand is more attractive, even elegant except for the section symbol, which looks a little like a seahorse, but that's just me the can't blame a guy for trying award this month's can't blame. A guy for trying award goes to Texas pain clinic. Dr. Rafa Krai when his ex-employee Juanita AOA showed up at the clinic to retrieve personal belongings. He accused her of trying to steal medical records, flew into a rage. Viciously, shook her and had the doors locked. So she could not leave. When Juanita sued him for false imprisonment. His defense was not that he didn't do it. His defense was that the case should be dismissed because it was actually a medical malpractice case. And since Juanita had not filed an expert report as required by the Texas med mal act, it had to be dismissed. Just why was it a med mal case? Why his lawyer said with a semi straight for, because it all occurred in a medical facility, Q E D barely suppressing their laughter. The Texas court of appeals affirmed the rejection of Dr. Kashi's motion to dismiss the case is AOA versus Krai Texas court of appeals life imitating art. Remember the old movie, the fortune cookie Walter math was a scheming plaintiff's lawyer who talked his brother-in-law Jack lemon into faking a personal injury so they could scam the insurance company. Mattau won the best actor award in the movie. The insurance company's private investigator constantly tries to film lemon, doing things he claims not to be able to do. That's exact what happened in a North Carolina case Hortens hill sued an orthopedic surgeon claiming that his negligence left her unable to walk. She had to rely on a scooter to get around and couldn't do things like walk and push her grandchild stroller. But the defense showed video of HTS walking, handling the curbs with ease climbing stairs, loading her car with groceries and carrying her child. As she walked merrily along when the jury found in favor of the orthopedist Hort appealed, arguing that the video should not have been admitted, but the court of appeals ruled that the video was appropriate for impeaching Hort credibility. She opened the door to it when she took the stand and testified that she couldn't do the things the video showed her doing the case says hill versus Boone, North Carolina court of appeals. The appeal of the appeal approach Dr. Norman Vincent peel is the author of the power of positive thinking, which extols the value of always looking on the bright side of everything. That's what I'm gonna do with the nurses satisfaction survey recently reported in Becker's hospital review here goes good news. A full 12% of nurses in the us are happy in their positions. Well, that's it for this month's edition of the lighter side of health flow. I hope you enjoyed it. Check your ah, L a weekly and health law connection magazine for the next edition.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe to a H L a speaking of health law, wherever you get your podcasts to learn more about ALA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit American health law.org.