By Angie Zinzilieta

​This myth is perhaps the most unfortunate piece of advice I’ve heard.  I tell prospective clients all the time: “Even if you choose not to hire our firm, please look into hiring a lawyer to help and protect you.” 

Insurance companies are for-profit corporations.   There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money.  The problems start when money becomes the focus and goal.  “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”  An insurance company’s goal is to make money.  It does that by offering the lowest settlement amount possible or denying liability altogether. 

The same can be said for your OWN insurance company.  Do no rely on your insurance company to protect your interests.  We have worked on several cases where insurance companies try to employ tactics to avoid paying compensation and protecting their insureds.  In fact (and unfortunately), our office has filed, settled, and won numerous “bad faith insurance” cases for this very reason.  Many times, our clients’ own insurance companies refuse to pay for necessary medical treatment, rental cars, etc.
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Ever wonder how insurance companies can afford those prime-time commercial slots, celebrity spokesmen, and having sports arenas named after them?  The answer is clear.  Protect yourself.  Even if you choose another firm, please hire a lawyer to protect your rights.

By Angie Zinzilieta

In a review of a book, Professor Mary Coombs, who taught at the University of Miami School of Law until retiring in 2014, makes this observation:
 
“The primary strands of the malpractice myth are the following: that many malpractice lawsuits are frivolous; that many plaintiffs obtain large judgments or settlements although the defendants did nothing wrong; and that, as a result of these lawsuits, doctors have been driven to waste substantial resources on defensive medicine, insurance premiums have skyrocketed, and good doctors have been driven out of the practice of medicine.  The overall result: worse care for patients, demoralized doctors, higher costs of medical care, with no one benefiting but a few greedy plaintiffs and … trial lawyers.”
 
Here are some of those myths we’ve all heard about:
 
MYTH:  There is an increase in medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors.
FACT:  The number of malpractice payments have dropped over the last 10 years.  According to the NCSC, medical malpractice cases represent well under 2 percent of all civil cases.
 
MYTH:  Most medical malpractice lawsuits are frivolous, and the person filing the lawsuit is interested in getting a lot of money.
FACT:  Medical malpractice cases tend to involve severe injuries.  Researchers have found few claims that were without merit. Most negligence claims were meritorious, with 97 percent of claims involving medical injury and 80 percent involving physical injuries resulting in major disability or death. Because these cases are very expensive to bring, it is hard to find medical malpractice cases that are without merit.  See National Center for State Courts; New England Journal of Medicine; Los Angeles Times.  According to research from Harvard, most people file medical malpractice claims to determine what happened to their loved one and why it happened. In fact, medical malpractice claims at the University of Michigan Health System have dropped since it instituted a policy of apologizing and being open with patients when errors occur.
 
MYTH:  Malpractice crises are caused by spikes in medical malpractice lawsuits.
FACT:  On dramatic surges in insurance rates, research shows that the insurance system primarily responds to “the frequency of serious medical injuries,” not litigation results.  They also found that stories of outlandish jury awards are common, but that actual awards typically are greatly reduced in the legal process and that more than 95 percent of payouts are  the result of voluntary settlements.
 
MYTH:  Physicians are one malpractice verdict away from bankruptcy.
FACT:  Doctors rarely make out-of-pocket payments in malpractice cases. Research shows that such payments are “extraordinarily rare.”
 
MYTH:  Physicians move in large numbers to states that adopt damages caps and other tort reform measures.
FACT:  Studies have shown that this is not the reason for any alleged physician migration.
 
MYTH:  Tort reform will lower health care spending dramatically.
FACT:  Research shows that tort reform in various states yield little to no reduction in health care spending.
 
MYTH:  Medical malpractice claims outnumber incidents of actual medical malpractice.
FACT:  Up to 7 in 8 patients never seek relief for the injuries they suffer through medical malpractice, even though it kills about 100,000 people a year in the United States.
 
MYTH:  It is impossible to stop the occurrence of medical malpractice.
FACT:  Most people injured by medical malpractice are victims of preventable errors.
 
MYTH:  Medical malpractice claims increase insurance premiums.
FACT:  Insurance rate increases are more closely linked to the insurance industry’s economic cycle than to medical malpractice claims.  Also, health care costs have risen, but the number of medical malpractice claims has decreased dramatically in the past decade.
 
See Hyman and Silver’s article is titled “Five Myths of Medical Malpractice.”

Also, if you enjoy podcasts, check out "Dr. Death" by Wondery.  It tells the story of an out of control doctor and how he was able to get away with his crimes for so long due to tort reform measures adopted by Texas.

By Angie Zinzilieta
 
Have you ever heard that Madison County, Illinois, is a “judicial hellhole”?  That the verdicts were out of control in Madison County?  To be honest, growing up in Southern Illinois, I always heard that statement and simply took it for the truth.  Yet, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth.  According to the Madison-St. Clair Record, only eight trials went to verdict last year in Madison County, Illinois.  Of those eight trials combined, the total value of the verdicts was $251,464.90, but the highest verdict was an award for $159,464.90 in a breach of contract case, not a personal injury case.  In 2018, nine cases went to trial, and the total value of those verdicts combined was $186,342 according to the Madison-St. Clair Record.
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Undoubtedly, large jury verdicts get the most publicity, but they are not the norm.  From 2010 to 2016, the median jury award in personal injury cases was $68,189.  Also, while our judicial system gives juries substantial power in determining verdicts, juries do not have the final word.  For example, in the highly publicized Johnson & Johnson baby powder case in St. Louis, Missouri, the Missouri Court of Appeals cut the $4 billion verdict in half.  Despite this, juries typically do their jobs very well.  Studies have shown that judges, who are presumably less prone to bias and passion, agree with juries’ decisions at least 75% of the time.
 
What’s the moral of the story?  Maybe large corporations, insurance companies, and tort reformists aren’t giving us the facts.  Like I once did, many of us just take their statements as true, but the facts paint a different picture.

By: Angie Zinzilieta
 
When I was in law school, I clerked for a judge who would always jokingly say, “There are more lawyers than stray cats around here!”  He wasn’t alone in his thinking.  Late Justice Scalia once said: “We are devoting too many of our very best minds” to the legal profession because “lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything.”
 
Despite this wide-spread opinion, the problem isn’t that we have too many lawyers.  The problem is that those who need access to the legal system and justice are receiving it.  According to a 2017 report by the Legal Services Corporation, low-income Americans received inadequate or no legal help for 86% of their civil legal problems.  According to a task force created in New York, 93% of parents dealing with child custody issues did not have a lawyer, and only 1% of debtors in credit card debt actions had a lawyer.
 
Our team of lawyers comes from a blue collar background.  We base our hiring on not only a lawyer’s resume and law school transcript, but also their personal background.  You can’t teach hungry.  Our lawyers deeply understand the financial struggles which come with being involved in a car crash, having insurance deny your claim, being denied workers’ compensation benefits, or being a victim of medical malpractice.  We’ve been there.  Our team does plaintiff’s civil work because we want to help those who need help.
 
There may be more lawyers than stray cats, but there are very few lawyers who understand.