Malpractice Suits Physician’s Alert

As both a doctor and a lawyer, I am exceedingly disturbed by a letter (Nov. 12) from Dr. Mitchell Karlan, president of Los Angeles County Medical Assn., in which he continues to mouth misleading propaganda, which he knows to be untrue.

He states that “75% of all malpractice suits are without merit. Most are so-called frivolous or nuisance suits.” That is incorrect.

Since 1975 there has been a law in California (CCP Sec. 411.3) that requires that before an attorney can file a medical malpractice lawsuit, he/she must first consult with a medical doctor. Not until the lawyer is convinced as a result of that consultation that the lawsuit is meritorious may he file the suit. He must also sign a certificate of merit and submit it along with, and at the time of, the filing of the suit. The county clerk will not accept filing of the lawsuit without that document.

Karlan is well aware of CCP Sec. 411.3. It came to be law as a direct result of intense lobbying by the California Medical Assn. and his own county organization. In fact, medical malpractice is perhaps the only area of civil litigation where frivolous or nuisance suits could not possibly be filed, because of the certificate of merit requirement.

Interestingly, if what Karlan contends could be true, it would mean that the consulting doctor is responsible for filing of a non-meritorious lawsuit. Is that what Karlan is saying--that there are members of his association who would indulge in such a nefarious practice?

Karlan also is apparently quite selective about the “vast difference between being sued and being guilty” and the fact that “every defendant is innocent until proven guilty” when he advises that our proposed Patient’s Alert system--which would inform patients about malpractice suits filed against doctors--should indicate how many lawsuits the doctor lost.

He does not make that same requirement in the case of the association’s Physician’s Alert program, which informs doctors about any lawsuits the patient may have filed. This system does not differentiate among lawsuits. The patient may have filed for divorce, for breach of contract, for auto accident damages--they all will show up on Physician’s Alert and give the doctor the opportunity of refusing to treat the patient because that patient is, to use Karlan’s term, a “professional plaintiff.”

SAMUEL SHORE

Los Angeles

Shore is chairman of the Medical Malpractice Section of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn.