If plastic surgeons in Miami were required to carry malpractice insurance, I’d be able to retire within 3 years. Instead I get call after call from patients who have been mutilated badly or family members of patients who died for ridiculously obvious negligence on the part of the surgeon. They don’t give a single fuck, are totally asset protected and just continue to make millions upon millions a year and leave behind trails of carnage in their wake. Pisses me the fuck off.
i don't know the answer but it sort of makes sense there would be some sort of exception for plastic surgeons in a lot of instances
Is there ever a mildly disputed or temperately disputed liability claim? I only see them referred to as hotly disputed.
Terribly sorry for being off topic and realize chances are low but: anyone here practice labor defense in Washington state or know someone who does? Not a dirtbag being sued by an employee. I work on compliance software and want to better understand their break laws
Is the thought process that plastic surgery is both unpredictable and that the quality of the results are subjective? I mean it still seems like they should be required to have malpractice insurance, ffs.
Florida has a financial responsibility law that applies to all physicians (at least in theory). They need to either carry malpractice insurance with a minimum policy limit of $250k, or they agree to be personally responsible for at least $250k in damages should they get hit with a judgment in a malpractice case. The problem is the Board of Medicine is toothless when it comes to enforcing that provision so the doctors get away with it.
There are no exceptions for plastic surgeons, and if anything it makes less sense for that group to be exempt given their volume of work and the fact that most of the procedures are elective. I just got another call today from a client telling me that the same surgeon who caused paralysis to her leg by injecting fat im a area that is specifically prohibited by statute just had another patient die on the table from a fat embolus (which happens for the same reason). Both the surgeon and the clinic refuse to even respond to anything we’ve sent them.
LOL I had a PC call with a breast augmentation gone awry in Miami. Tried to refer it to El Tiburon and it's one of those shitty docs he was just talking about . What are the odds?
And that was just the order of suspension. I’ve gotten multiple other calls about that guy, and in my research file I have an old USA Today story about the felon that owned the facility.
I just wrecked a guy on Zoom while he lay in bed. I love this new digital frontier of our profession.
I had a hearing earlier today where the employer/carrier in a comp claim was denying a lumbar fusion based on non certification by utilization review. I started my oral argument and the judge jumped in/cut me off within probably a minute and started aggressively asking questions to OC and railroading her. Judge: "I've never denied a surgery in 13 years of being a judge based on utilization review so why should I do it now?" OC: "Uhhhh pause uhhhhh" Judge interrupts OC : "Ok I'm granting the motion to compel the surgery I'll have the order out by Monday." Twas beautiful.
CF3234 Don't you do a lot of building damage stuff? Just got a new case where Allstate is apparently sending out an underling to take pictures and then an adjuster in a different state appraises the loss based on those pictures and never sets foot on the property. Are you seeing any of that?
the royal rumble is tomorrow. I tried estimating my hours I have in this case in the year since I took over as the primary lawyer, i lost count. I think it’s 800-1000.
I'll be talking to a lawyer in person soon so this more out of curiosity. I own 51.5% of a S corp company, there are two other owners with 24.25% each. One of these owners hasn't been involved in the company at all in about 15 years, shit, dude doesn't even live in the country anymore. This guy though has done some fucked up shit over the years so there's a long story behind this but recently he's one of the many that covid has absolutely melted his brain. I'm talking Qanon, holocaust is fake level brain melt. We don't want him to be a part of the company anymore but he is absolutely delusional and refuses to let us buy him out. Being a S corp, are we allowed to raise my salary and the other owners salary (both of us are still active in day-to-day operations) to a level that basically bleeds any profits out of the company?
First, you may have inadvertently terminated your S election if the guy lives outside the US and also renounced his US citizenship (or is a foreigner living outside the US). The S corp rules do not allow nonresident foreigners to be S corp shareholders. May want to have your attorney look into this as it can impact multiple tax years. Second, your ability to force a sale of his interest or dilute his economics will depend upon the terms of your organizational docs (operating agreement, bylaws, etc.) and state law. S corp is a tax concept only and has no bearing on the financial and governance rights among the shareholders. From a state law perspective, depending on a number of factors your attorney should look at, you may be able to waive your fiduciary duties and drown him out. Because you and the good guy have 75%, you likely have sufficient control to do whatever you want but that’ll depend on your governing docs
If your state law entity is a Delaware corp, then you can’t waive your fiduciary duties and dilute the minority shareholder (the topic you may want to google is oppression of minority shareholders). If that’s the case, then you could convert the entity to a DE LLC, in which case you can waive fiduciary duties and fuck him up. Talk to your attorney
Still may want to have someone look into the status of the S election. I don’t know the nuances around foreign ownership off the top of my head. May also potentially be able to use it as leverage against him but that’s doubtful to be a strong position. Talk to your attorney
I have a client who claims his parents' auto carrier is canceling their policy because his dad got in a bad wreck and they had "to pay out too much." Can a carrier cancel a policy because you get in a wreck and that have to pay out a large sum? I've never run into this issue before.
Is it canceling a current policy or just not allowing the family to purchase insurance from the carrier upon termination of the current policy?
On a separate note, I wouldn't think a carrier could drop an insured from making a UM claim. Otherwise what's the point of paying a UM premium?
This guy isn't super sophisticated so he could be giving me bad info, but he claims the carrier is canceling their currently policy for the above stated reasons. Not sure if that is bad faith or not.
Interesting conversation today. Signed up MVA back last summer. Wreck was pretty bad but injuries fairly minor. I write UM carrier just putting them on notice. Took months to track down the at fault driver. Finally do and get her served, determine that she is uninsured. Send over another letter to carrier telling them this and formally making UM claim. Adjuster calls me talking about how she is confused, that they settled the UM claim a few months ago and have a signed release. Claims they never received my letter of rep. About 10 minutes into conversation, her entire demeanor changes when I can tell she finds my letter of rep from last summer. My idiot client apparently thought it was property damage only.
It depends upon the state. With auto, every state has statutes and the policy usually has a separate endorsement specific to that state which tracks the statute. The short answer is many states allow loss history as a basis to nonrenew, but provide for specific criteria to cancel midterm. Usually, cancellation also is prohibited except by statute if a policy has been in force for a certain period of days.
Once a loss occurs during the period, cancelling afterward does not affect coverage. Policyholder has the coverage until the effective date of cancellation. Claims-made coverage is different, but auto is generally never clams made coverage.
Agreed that canceling the policy doesn't impact coverage of the loss. From the plaintiff's perspective most of my clients are afraid to use their UM. My research has always indicated that an insured making a claim on their UM policy was not grounds for canceling or non renewing the policy. I would think that would be bad faith and a breach of contract depending on policy language.
I signed up a potentially big med mal case where the client was initially involved in a significant rear end impact. Lost consciousness at the scene and was put on cervical spine precautions. The hospital seems to have missed a fractured cervical vertebrae that 5 days later impinged the cord and turned the guy into a quad. I asked the client if they ever pursued the auto aspect of the case and they said no. Today I find out that the tortfeasor’s carrier sent them a check for the $10k limits and a release. Wife now recalls that they got the check and cashed it, but claims she never signed the release. This is exactly the situation I was worried about up front.
It's maddening. This client has sent me every document the carrier ever sent her, but somehow forgot to send me this PI release. Carrier is reopening claim. They know they dropped the ball big time on this one.
Well at least there's no way that the carrier tries to stand by their release. But can't say I've ever had that happen before.
When Covid hit, I had a client who insured businesses that were deemed essential under lockdown orders. A small number of these businesses were owned by idiots who openly violated Covid masking and social distancing orders issued in two states. We audited them and sent cancellation notices. Since the protocols were issued by state health departments, they had the force and effect of law. We cancelled midterm, got into litigation with two of them because all substitute policies had virus exclusions. They couldn’t purchase the same coverage. We won because state statute allowed failure to follow state law on health and safety as a basis to cancel. We argued that the policyholder’s decision was no different than choosing not to follow the fire code. The law doesn’t require you to insure that behavior.
It was a fairly fun conversation. Adjuster was being real polite but very firm in, you never sent a letter of rep, or at least we never received it, blah blah blah, this one is over. I say, well I sent it to same fax I sent the one you are responding to right now, I've got the delivery confirmation, here's the date. Still chipper, nope never got it, not put in here, and then pause. Voice drops an octave or two, well I need to talk to a supervisor about this one, and I will call you back. Calls back 10 minutes later, yes the letter of rep went to main office and not claims specifically, it was triaged incorrectly and we had it all along. We'll get this reopened and sent back over to litigation asap.
we went for a total of 8 hours over 2 days. It went well. He led off the hearing with listing all the ways he was leaning towards sanctioning them. I think all that’s left is he is going to ask for supplemental briefing on what type of issue preclusion should be done or if the answer should be struck.
Got a condescending OC who is trying to nickle and dime me to a ridiculous level. He’s also including comments like “x thousand new money for the client. That’s a nice payday.” He and I both know it isn’t enough for a new roof.
Update with great news: I got a copy of the release. Even though she cashed the check and didn’t sign it, the release contained language preserving any and all future claims against the healthcare providers. GEICO did me a solid on this.