<span itemprop="author">Howard Smith, MD

In the English Rule, the losing party in a lawsuit pays all legal costs. It is accepted worldwide; however, in the United States, it was replaced by the American Rule. In the American Rule, both the plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit pay their own le…

The first book I ever read was The Last Angry Man. I could never have imagined then how it would influence me now. It is about a fictional character, Dr. Samuel Abelman. He is a general practitioner practicing in New York City during the 1950s. He is i…

Today, the conventional rules that medical experts use to evaluate the merits of a malpractice lawsuit are established by attorneys, not doctors. These rules are based on inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is acceptable except for one thing; it f…

When you are sued for medical malpractice, your malpractice carrier establishes your duties to it, and your lawyer establishes your duties to him or her. Let me be clear – when you are sued for medical malpractice, you have no greater duty than t…

I am an OB/GYN and no stranger to malpractice litigation. As beleaguered as you may feel when you are sued for medical malpractice, the next hurdle to conquer after you are served is when you realize that your own attorney is prepared to throw you unde…

There has always been a “fight club” because there have always been medical malpractice lawsuits. They are predicated on complications, either errors of nature or medical errors, and no doctor is immune. In the United States, roughly 85,000…

There is no shortage of the problems that plague health care. Even so, health law gurus make problems worse by creating the medical liability litigation industry. Gurus deny creating this industry. They create health reforms and tort reforms to solve p…

In line with my previous posts that explain how to resolve all medical malpractice lawsuits, especially frivolous ones, at the lowest possible cost for the physician and the malpractice carrier, this article addresses a malicious medical malpractice la…

Attention all doctors: You can be dismissed from a medical malpractice lawsuit and, at the same time, save 30% on the cost of your medical malpractice premiums per year. Just as no physician is immune from a complication, none are immune from a resulti…