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.
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.
Hi, I'm Norm Taber with this must edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law. Zooming while operating. It was a first for Sacramento Traffic Court Commissioner Gary Link. Hundreds of drivers had stood before him accused of texting while operating a vehicle, dialing while operating, eating while operating, you name it. But he never had a case of zooming while operating. Never. That is until surgeon Scott Green joined the hearing via Zoom from the hospital operating room, dressed in surgical garb with his unconscious patient lying on the table. Commissioner Gary was astonished. Surgeon Scott was blase. What's the big deal? He wondered where Halfway through the operation and the guy I'M training can keep operating while I try to beat this traffic ramp. But Commissioner Gary refused to proceed and reschedule for a time when Scott can zoom while not operating. The California Medical Board is investigating federalism in action under our federal system. Different states have different laws and sometimes the difference is dramatic as in the outcomes of two covid lawsuits filed by dentists against the same property insurance company. In both cases, the dentists argued that they had lost the use of their premises because government authorities ordered that they closed except for emergency cases. The insurer's defense was the same in both cases. Look, we insured you for the loss of your property through physical damage. You don't have any physical damage. Your office is fine. The outcomes in the federal case in Missouri, the court Sid with the dentist emphasizing that the virus is a real physical thing and that thing is in the office attached to the walls to furniture and equipment and it's in the air. Its presence renders the office unusable. So there is property loss, the dentist won. Meanwhile, down in Georgia, the court acted like the dentist was speaking Greek. What are you talking about? The court wondered. There can't be property loss unless there's actual change to the property. Something that requires repair or replacement. The temporary inability to use an office doesn't mean it's been physically damaged or lost case dismissed. The cases are Studio four 17 versus Cincinnati Insurance, Western District, Missouri and Gilbert versus Cincinnati Insurance. Northern District Georgia Judges behaving in judiciously. It's a truism that you don't wanna see how sausage is made. They say it's almost as UGLi as watching law being made. Well, here's an article proving that we probably don't want to look too closely at the behavior of judges, at least not in New York State. Watsontown Court Judge Greg Berger was really steamed when the town refused to pay for his health insurance. So thinking and acting like an angry and not very bright 11 year old, he keyed the side of a town official's car and like the same 11 year old he got caught. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct decided that vandalism is inconsistent with serving as a judge and his punishment required Greg to resign and promise never to be a judge again. If he does try to become a judge again, the commission promised to reopen his case and dole out some serious punishment. But it's the fine print at the end of the article that got my attention. The commission has applied this resign and don't ever be a judge again or will throw the book at you approach to 98 different judges. I know New York is a big state, but that's a lot of bad apples in the judiciary barrel. You may be a serial thief. This case proves you may be a serial thief without even knowing it. Business titans, Harold Pier Boom and Ike Pearl Utter have been involved in a lawsuit against each other for a decade. Harold alleges that I is behind a hate mail campaign that defamed him, ICU Countersuit Harold for theft alleging that Harold stole his d n a. That's right. Ike says, Harold stole his DNA n a. He did it by subpoenaing Ike for a deposition and offering him bottled water. Then after the deposition, Harold's team sent the bottle off for testing trying to match Ike's d n a to DNA n a on the hate mail. The Palm Beach Circuit Court has held that Ike has stated a valid claim for theft. So think about it. How many times have you offered someone a bottle of water and then kept the bottle after they left? Did you ever even once offer to give back the dna? I thought not. So you may be a thief without even knowing it. Maybe that's why Evon spells naive backwards. No foul for towel left in bell when no gas was sewn up after abdominal surgery in 2000, a blue towel was still inside him. It stayed there until 2017 when it was discovered and surgically removed. So Lloyd has a good malpractice case for the 2000 operation. Right? Wrong. According to the Michigan Court of Appeals, Lloyd had invoked an exception to Michigan's two-year statute of limitations pointing out that until 2017 he hadn't known he had a blue towel in his abdomen. But the court ruled that the exception applies only if the defendants knew about the negligent act and tried to hide it. Here there was no evidence that defendant's knew a towel was left inside Lloyd or even that a towel was missing. They hadn't performed a towel count, so they couldn't know that one was missing. There's no truth to the rumor that Lloyd's medical bill in 2000 included a charge for quote one surgical towel blue. The case is Gatz versus Zelman. Lipstick on the pig. Lipstick on a pig. You can put lipstick on a pig, but that doesn't make it attractive. Take the kerfuffle in Pennsylvania over Geisinger Health's practice of allowing relatives of Geisinger employees to jump the Covid vaccination line. The program let Geisinger employees designate two relatives to be vaccinated as though they were employees and they didn't need to be close relatives or live with the employee. And we're not talking about a handful of people. Geisinger has 24,000 employees add two more for each employee and you've got 72,000 sleeves rolled up and that's just for the first shot. When the Pennsylvania Department of Health learned what was happening, it ordered Geisinger to shut down or lose further access to vaccine. Now for the lipstick, a Geisinger spokesman announced presumably with a straight face that they thought they had been doing Pennsylvania communities a big favor. How's that? You're wondering? Well said. The spokesman getting all these thousands of relatives vaccinated ahead of time will free up space down the road when ordinary people with no connections eventually get their shots. You can't make this stuff up and you thought your clients were demanding. Admit it. Sometimes you feel sorry for yourself because your clients are so demanding. Well, here's a case that should put a little perspective on the matter. Hyde for NA retained attorney Roth Pat Burke to Sue University of Pennsylvania Medical Center after she slipped and fell in the Medc Center parking lot in 2017. When Mr. Pat Burke died in 2018, his firm said it would continue to handle her case. But when the two year statute expired in 2019, no lawsuit had been filed and Heidi's case was time barred. It wasn't surprising that Heidi sued the firm for negligence. What was surprising, at least to me, was that Heidi sued Mr. Pat Berg's estate. Her theory, well, it was Mr. Pat Berg's duty to file the suit within the two-year period and he shouldn't have let a little thing like death keep him from doing his duty. A deadline is a deadline even for a dead lawyer. Now, don't you feel better about your clients? The case is for N versus Pat Berg. Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. Does this mean I'm a cynic? I'm all for punishing bad guys and protecting victims, but honestly, sometimes the victims have been so colossally dumb. It's hard to sympathize. Take the federal charges against Rudy Giuliani's Associates, Lev Pars and David coa. The DOJ has charged them with fraud alleging that they defrauded victims who invested in a company they set up. Guess what? The company was named Fraud Guarantee. You heard correctly, they asked people to invest in fraud guarantee and when they did, it turned out to be, guess what a fraud as guaranteed. I find it hard to sympathize with the investors. Does that mean I'm a cynic? The case is US versus Par Eted Al Southern District New York. Well that's it for this month's edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law. I hope you enjoyed it. Check your A H L A Weekly in Health Law Connections Magazine for the next edition.