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EDITORIAL
Greed, not justice
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A Clark County jury has proved beyond any doubt that the American civil court system is in desperate need of reform.
After awarding more than $5 million in compensatory damages Wednesday in a product liability case, on Friday the jury ordered a pair of drug makers to cough up $500 million in punitive damages.
It would be a staggering sum in a class-action case where the defendant deliberately caused direct harm to scores of plaintiffs. But this was no such case.
It was the first trial to address the valley's hepatitis C outbreak, an inexcusable public health crisis that resulted from intentionally unsafe practices at the now-closed Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Clinic employees reused syringes and single-use vials of the sedative propofol on patients undergoing endoscopic procedures, which contaminated the vials of propofol and, in one horrible instance, spread the blood disease from one patient to several others.
The blame for those infections lies with the center's employees and its owner, Dr. Dipak Desai, who cut corners to maximize their earnings at the expense of patient safety. Many people, including Henderson resident Henry Chanin, now 62, were harmed by the endoscopy center.
But the pockets of Desai, his employees and his business run only so deep. So after settling with those parties Mr. Chanin and his attorney, Robert Eglet, went after the deepest ones they could find: Teva Parenteral Medicine and Baxter Healthcare Services, which made and sold the propofol.
Mr. Eglet argued that because the single-use vials of propofol contained more of the sedative than was needed for any endoscopic procedure, the drug makers should have put warning labels on the vials and sold smaller doses to Desai and his group.
Not doing so somehow tempted Desai's employees to abandon infection-control practices taught to first-year medical and nursing students everywhere, the argument went.
The jury bought it and decided Mr. Chanin and his wife, Lorraine, should receive compensation for the drug makers' lack of instruction in basic medicine.
Civil courts are supposed to make harmed parties whole. The criminal system is supposed to punish those who break the law. Teva Parenteral Medicine and Baxter Healthcare Services broke no laws.
And now they're supposed to pay $500 million to one couple? As punishment for the disgusting dereliction of one medical practice?
Mr. Eglet had urged the jury to award his clients $1 billion in punitive damages. Numbers such as these have no nexus to reality. They are arbitrary in the least, preposterous at most. And they rarely stand through appeals.
They represent greed, not justice.
The lawsuit lottery has produced another big winner. But jurors never seem to consider that their huge numbers are never imposed solely on defendants.
No, those costs are shared by everyone, including the jurors themselves, through higher costs on goods and services. This particular case -- and the outbreak-related trials that will follow it -- certainly will have the effect of making health care more expensive.
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And people wonder why drug prices are so high, it is no wonder with ridiculous lawsuit judgements like this.
I thought Nevada had a cap on insane judgements like this.
One aspect, which was not reported on during news coverage of the trial.
What size vial, of the same anesthetic, is typically used at other facilities for the same procedure (colonoscopy)?
If defendant can show that at least some use of the larger/50ML vials is made, that would be a strong argument against holding defendant responsible for ECSN's misuse of same.
It also appears that the "typical" colonoscopy requires a total of more than 10 ML, and that starting with a 10ML vial would tend to require use of a new vial mid-procedure.
Depending upon the cost of 10ML and 50ML vials, and the additional labor cost due to replacing a vial, the decision as to vial size would appear to be a "judgment call". Very much up to facility management; implying that there WAS a valid reason for selling 50ML vials.
SamT wants to know why I stated that the jury in the Exxon Valdez case found that Exxon acted "maliciously".
I respond that in order to award punitive damages a jury MUST find that the defendant acted maliciously, and since punitive damages WERE awarded (although abusively reduced by a rabid right wing activist Supreme Court "justices") it should be obvious that the jury found that Exxon acted maliciously.
And "guru" (don't hide behind yet ANOTHER ridiculous screen name I know its you)
No one claimed that anyone hates the birds or the fish, or any race of bird or fish (snicker) but it is obvious that you will take any opportunity to transfer your own hatred and racism to someone else.
You seem very angry and you really should get help before its too late.
LVRJ,
Let your editorial board contract Hepatitus C, THEN tell us what you think.
Hepatitus C is the worst strain of the Hepatitus genome.
And, of course once you get it, you have it for LIFE!!!
The End
John F.:
I agree with you to an extent; punitive damages should be apportioned with little if any going to the plaintiffs however since the rational for punitive damages is to punish a corporation for MALICIOUS behavior (not just because they were "negligent") unless some provision exists to incent the injured to pursue punitive damages the MALICIOUS actor will never be punished for their bad acts.
Because these cases typically require thousands of hours of legal time to prosecute, unless the attorneys have some incentive to invest these hours, it will not happen and the corporations will not be punished as the law has determined they should be.
For anyone wanting to see a tragic case of how large corporations respond to the malicious conduct take a look at the Exxon Valdez case. While the original punitive damage award to the class in that case was 5 billion dollars, after 18 years of appeals, and motions, and argument, the rabid right wing activist members of the Supreme Court arbitrarily reduced the award to approx. 500 million. During the 18 years of appeals, Exxon MADE 28 BILLION DOLLARS off of interest from the original 5 billion dollar award, and 500 million dollars is what Exxon "earns" in 4 DAYS!
The destruction visited on Alaska remains today and it is more reason why large corporations MUST BE STOPPED when they MALICIOUSLY injure citizens in this country.