[HSF] Standard of care for lawyers
DukeB60 at aol.com
DukeB60 at aol.com
Wed Apr 9 21:08:46 EDT 2008
Ed,
My original plan was to get an opinion from the Counsel for Discipline
then bring an action against this lawyer for his unbelievably shoddy work. If
you read my letter to the Court you would have thought is was a complete no
brainer decision but guess what. I wasn't totally surprised that the Counsel
didn't rule against the lawyer but the statements that is was basically okay
to be negligent was shocking even to me so it will probably be a total waste
of time to try to sue his a**. I hate the whole idea anyway but feel like I
got screwed. And to think the Supreme Court would use the term "bungle" in
it's opinion is sadly amusing. When was the last time you heard the term
"bungle" in a medical malpractice action. OMG. I'm so upset with the whole
situation I could spit but will undoubtedly just chalk it up to experience. I
just thought the Forum should know the incredibly low standard that lawyers
are held accountable to in their own profession. I had no idea and this
official letter set the bar, so to speak, even lower than I thought possible.
Ed
Edward P. Raines, M.D., J.D.
BryanLGH Cardiothoracic Surgery
BryanLGH Medical Center East
1600 South 48th Str.
Lincoln, Nebraska 68506
Office: 402-481-8430
Cell: 402-730-9242
Fax: 402-481-8429
In a message dated 4/9/2008 5:49:32 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
ebender001 at charter.net writes:
Mike:
I was holding back. I don't kid myself to think that there are no
legal-type lurkers on this forum. If there are any listening in, I've got a
hot tip on several cases of negligence and some adverse drug reactions that
have yet to be published. I'm just looking for a finders fee. All kidding
aside, I would bet that in every hospital in the country (USA), there are
paid informants that report back to litigators when they see an adverse
outcome. Sometimes it might even be your colleague, your favorite nurse or
respiratory therapist, or even the custodial staff. It is surprising how
little "blood money" it takes.
Ed Bender, MD
On 4/9/08 5:34 PM, "Michael Firstenberg" <msfirst at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ed
> Tell us how you really feel - dont hold back it is just us.
>
>
> Michael Firstenberg <msfirst at gmail.com>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Edward Bender" <ebender001 at charter.net>
> To: OpenHeart-L at lists.hsforum.com
> Sent: 4/9/2008 5:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [HSF] Standard of care for lawyers
>
> This is disturbing but not that surprising. Perhaps if lawyers were
> required to carry malpractice insurance that paid as well as medical
> malpractice insurance, there would be an incentive for one attorney to go
> after another. As it stands, what's in it for a prospective plaintiff?
> Ethics are obviously not involved.
>
> I related your story to one of my cardiologists with whom I regularly trade
> legal nightmare stories. He tells me of a surgeon who was in the middle of
> an aortic aneurysm repair who was mistakenly paged by an outside ER for a
> trauma case. He wasn't on call and obviously could not deal with the
acute
> trauma during his AAA repair in any case. The correct surgeon was called,
> the patient was transferred but died in the ER of severe multiple trauma.
> The mistakenly called surgeon was named in the subsequent law suit, and the
> plaintiff's attorney refused to drop him from the case unless he was paid
> some money. This went on for years, and he was eventually dropped. The
> surgeon wanted to sue the attorney but could find no attorney that was
> willing to take the case. The surgeon was so angered by this that he spent
> the next year learning how to file and pursue this himself, and he
> eventually won a huge settlement from the litigator's law firm. The moral
> of the story is that litigators are scum sucking, bottom dwelling, garbage
> eating pig-f**kers, who have crawled out of the a**hole of hell - and I
mean
> that with all due respect.
>
> Ed Bender, MD
>
>
> On 4/9/08 1:28 PM, "dukeb60 at aol.com" <dukeb60 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> ?? It has been fairly quiet on the forum so I'll post this recent response
>> from our State Supreme Court to induce some reaction.? As you know, I am a
>> lawyer although I have never practiced law but do have a little more
>> background than the average person and did pass the bar.? I recently had a
>> lawyer handle a case for me in which he performed very poorly and what I
>> considered to be in a frankly negligent manner by not representing my
>> interests and failing to even read some rather pertinent legal
materials.? As
>> a result, I filed a complaint with the Counsel for Discipline of our State
>> Supreme court to review his handling of the case.? The response startled
even
>> me not so much in the conclusion but the rational for the same, which I
will
>> share.? The respondent wrote,
>>
>> "Isolated instances of ordinary negligence or errors of judgement do not
rise
>> to the level of a disciplinary violation and are not sufficient to warrant
>> disciplinary action.?
>> ?
>> ??As stated in Modern?Legal Ethics (1986):
>> ???
>> ????????? To date, the enforcement of competence standards has been
generally
>> limited to relatively exotic, blatant, or repeated cases of lawyer
bungling.?
>> Lawyers who make some showing of effort, and who do nothing other than
>> perform
>> badly, rarely appear in the appellate reports in discipline cases.? The
>> lawyers who are disciplined for? incompetence have usually aggravated
their
>> situation.? For example, several cases involve lawyers who, after their
>> incompetent work, concocted elaborate schemes or lies to decieve a client
>> whose case was mishandled.
>>
>> ?? ... For the above reasons I have concluded, pursuant to Rule of
Discipline
>> 9(C), that your allegations against Attorney "X" do not warrant further
>> inquiry by this office."?
>>
>> ???? So, this is the standard to which our legal professionals are held in
>> their handling of cases.? I am quite certain it is not the same standard
to
>> which we, as medical professionals, are held in the handling of our
cases.?
>> It
>> is okay to bungle as long as you don't concoct a scheme to conceal the
>> bungling.
>> ?
>> As much as it is hard to believe that is actually what a representative of
>> the
>> Supreme Court wrote it is true.? Caveat emptor, clearly, is the rule in
law.?
>> While I appreciate the education of a law degree, it is indeed
embarrassing
>> sometimes to be one.
>>
>>
>>
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????>
>
?
>> ????????????????????????????????????????? Ed
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