Picking Up the $650,000 Tab for Breast Cancer Case Award

Our civil justice system stinks. The evidence is now overwhelming.

Juries in medical malpractice cases have awarded huge sums to unfortunate victims. Businesses and insurance companies are going bankrupt because of unrealistic and sometimes un warranted liability settlements.

All of us, as consumers, must pick up this tab.

The huge sums now required to protect doctors, businesses and insurance companies from liability claims are being passed on to us in the form of higher fees, prices and premiums.

Now a jury has awarded $650,000 to a woman who claims that her breast cancer was aggravated by an auto accident.

Such an obviously irrational verdict leads to one conclusion only: that our civil justice system must somehow be revised.

The article (Jan. 8) quotes an oncologist as saying that 10% to 20% of his patients give a history of breast trauma.

Of course, he failed to add that 10% to 20% of gall stone patients also give a history of breast trauma if asked.

I would guess that a random sample of women over age 30 would find some 10% to 20% have a history of breast trauma!

Obviously the unfortunate cancer victim won the jury’s sympathy and hence, generosity. But then who really pays the tab?

Injured parties are suing everyone in sight, and they stand to win whenever they lay a claim against a wealthy person, a big business or an insurance company. Once an injured plaintiff gets the jury’s sympathy, it doesn’t seem to matter whose fault it was.

Juries simply are incapable of responding to emotional pleas with rational verdicts, despite instructions to the contrary.

Perhaps, then, all civil liability cases should be heard by judges rather than by juries. Judges are, after all, trained in making difficult decisions objectively.

Whatever the solution, our civil justice system needs to be changed and soon! Before it becomes the laughing stock of the world.

DR. ANTON DAHLMAN

Seal Beach