Georgia physician recently learned that tort reforms were overturned by the State Supreme Court. The question left unanswered: what would be the effect, if any?
On March 26th, a jury gave its answer in a separate case. Jackson v. Coffee Regional Medical Center, No. 2207S04-387. That number: $1.5 million in noneconomic damages for pain and suffering.
That case involved a patient with chronic pancreatitis and diabetes. According to court documents, a nurse inserted an IV containing Phenergen and Demerol into a wrist vein at 6:30 PM. A check an hour later revealed nothing amiss. At 3 a.m., the site of the insertion was "painful and swollen," and the needle was removed reasonably quickly.
Later, the patient's doctor examined him and concluded the drugs had leaked into surrounding tissue. An orthopedic surgeon performed surgery on his wrist, identified a blood clot in thumb vein, but was unable to save the thumb. The patient's thumb was amputated.
Everyone can agree this was a bad medical outcome. Perhaps $1.5 million is reasonable based on the damages.
But without caps, a jury can just as easily return a different number, say, $5 million. And sometimes the number demanded by a plaintiff is more than a physician makes in a year, say $67 million. Remember, the average doctor is covered by policy limits of a mere one million dollars.
Perhaps the jackpot lottery is an outlier, unlikely to be repeated. Unbridled optimism can only go so far.
