Externship Entry #4
Events take place on or before March 14.
Sometimes, the litigation process just has me stymied. Or rather, how some things get litigated to begin with.
Take a law report I read for a case being argued last week: A corrections officer at Riker’s Island suffered a heart attack while playing basketball. When the paramedics showed up, he was apparently ashen and asystolic, so they used a defibrillator to try to get his heart going, which didn’t work. Then they injected him with epinephrine, which is supposed to stimulate cardiac activity, but that didn’t work, either. After 45 minutes or so, he was declared dead. Now the family is suing for medical malpractice, because evidently you’re not supposed to use a defibrillator on someone without a pulse, and the hormone injection should’ve been administered sooner. The way I saw it, the guy was probably already dead before the medics even got there, so whether or not they were negligent wouldn’t have made a difference - what damages were there to assess?
The lower court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, and now they were appealing. And according to Justice Catterson, medical malpractice cases rarely are decided on summary judgment. Meaning, as I took it, this had to be a pretty worthless case.
If you ask me, it probably shouldn’t’ve even gotten that far to waste anyone’s time and money. But one clue was telling why it did; the incident occurred in 1999. And some of the testimony from the meditech - during which he said there may have been some slight “vibrations” on the device monitoring the guy’s pulse (or lack thereof) - wasn’t given until 2007.
Huh? I understand that suits get held up for this reason or another, but what justifies holding back a suit for eight years (or more now)? I asked the judge if there was a statute of limitations; he said there was, and it was two years and change. Then how…?
Obviously they filed the claim in time. What took so long was getting a trial date. Apparently this case was a relic of the “bad old days” within the New York State court system.
Now, I took the MPRE last week, so I’m at least somewhat familiar with the Code of Judicial Conduct by now. And Canon 3(B)(8) particularly says: “A judge shall dispose of all judicial matters promptly, efficiently and fairly.”
Until very recently, though, judges in New York courts seemed to do everything but work “promptly, efficiently and fairly.” Parties would sometimes wait years to get a trial date. And basically, this blatant defiance of model judicial conduct managed to stay around so long because people just permitted it.
The judges took a very laissez-faire attitude to the whole process. When Justice Catterson was first elected at the trial level, one judge who’d been around for a while told him that his policy was that he’d be ready to hear a case “when the plaintiffs say they’re ready to try it.”
And it’s not like it was in the attorneys’ interests to move things forward.
“Remember,” the judge said sardonically, “lawyers are paid by the hour - so 20 conferences just paid the first year of your child’s tuition.”
At the same time, though, he pointed out, some attorneys are thankful when their case is dismissed - because it probably was languishing around in the system too long anyway (and they’d rather just be rid of something that was probably a losing cause).
Honestly, I would think the longer something was held up in court, the harder it would be to dismiss it. Memories fade; evidence changes or disappears; context changes. If you question an eyewitness in 1999, then take a deposition in 2007, of course their story is going to be different! Which, naturally, would probably raise some genuine question of fact that would keep the case going and clog up the system - thus pushing back other cases and leading to a ripple effect.
Somewhere along the line, someone (a few judges? the feds? I really don’t know) started to notice all the ridiculous wastefulness and blew the whistle, and the pendulum has since swung radically in the other direction - in that, now, as soon as you say you’ve completed discovery, boom, you’re on the calendar. It’s good that this happened, but it doesn’t suddenly negate the damage that’s been done - in that all those cases that have been sitting around under the “old system” still need to be cleared away. And this rubbish of a malpractice suit was one of them.
Needless to say, the plaintiffs’ attorney got ripped apart on oral argument - the entire panel was vociferous on that one. So in the end, justice will probably be done. But that doesn’t refute the fact that one man’s family has had to be constantly reminded of the pain of losing a relative for a dozen years, all the while paying attorneys’ fees to be constantly reminded - only to lose in a most embarrassing fashion and in the end be no better off. I suppose they had the option to drop the charges, but I guess once you pay a suck cost, you keep on paying. Further proof as to why personal injury law is a dirty, dirty business. Someone should’ve told them the justice system can be cruel.
Sometimes, the litigation process just has me stymied. Or rather, how some things get litigated to begin with.
Take a law report I read for a case being argued last week: A corrections officer at Riker’s Island suffered a heart attack while playing basketball. When the paramedics showed up, he was apparently ashen and asystolic, so they used a defibrillator to try to get his heart going, which didn’t work. Then they injected him with epinephrine, which is supposed to stimulate cardiac activity, but that didn’t work, either. After 45 minutes or so, he was declared dead. Now the family is suing for medical malpractice, because evidently you’re not supposed to use a defibrillator on someone without a pulse, and the hormone injection should’ve been administered sooner. The way I saw it, the guy was probably already dead before the medics even got there, so whether or not they were negligent wouldn’t have made a difference - what damages were there to assess?
The lower court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, and now they were appealing. And according to Justice Catterson, medical malpractice cases rarely are decided on summary judgment. Meaning, as I took it, this had to be a pretty worthless case.
If you ask me, it probably shouldn’t’ve even gotten that far to waste anyone’s time and money. But one clue was telling why it did; the incident occurred in 1999. And some of the testimony from the meditech - during which he said there may have been some slight “vibrations” on the device monitoring the guy’s pulse (or lack thereof) - wasn’t given until 2007.
Huh? I understand that suits get held up for this reason or another, but what justifies holding back a suit for eight years (or more now)? I asked the judge if there was a statute of limitations; he said there was, and it was two years and change. Then how…?
Obviously they filed the claim in time. What took so long was getting a trial date. Apparently this case was a relic of the “bad old days” within the New York State court system.
Now, I took the MPRE last week, so I’m at least somewhat familiar with the Code of Judicial Conduct by now. And Canon 3(B)(8) particularly says: “A judge shall dispose of all judicial matters promptly, efficiently and fairly.”
Until very recently, though, judges in New York courts seemed to do everything but work “promptly, efficiently and fairly.” Parties would sometimes wait years to get a trial date. And basically, this blatant defiance of model judicial conduct managed to stay around so long because people just permitted it.
The judges took a very laissez-faire attitude to the whole process. When Justice Catterson was first elected at the trial level, one judge who’d been around for a while told him that his policy was that he’d be ready to hear a case “when the plaintiffs say they’re ready to try it.”
And it’s not like it was in the attorneys’ interests to move things forward.
“Remember,” the judge said sardonically, “lawyers are paid by the hour - so 20 conferences just paid the first year of your child’s tuition.”
At the same time, though, he pointed out, some attorneys are thankful when their case is dismissed - because it probably was languishing around in the system too long anyway (and they’d rather just be rid of something that was probably a losing cause).
Honestly, I would think the longer something was held up in court, the harder it would be to dismiss it. Memories fade; evidence changes or disappears; context changes. If you question an eyewitness in 1999, then take a deposition in 2007, of course their story is going to be different! Which, naturally, would probably raise some genuine question of fact that would keep the case going and clog up the system - thus pushing back other cases and leading to a ripple effect.
Somewhere along the line, someone (a few judges? the feds? I really don’t know) started to notice all the ridiculous wastefulness and blew the whistle, and the pendulum has since swung radically in the other direction - in that, now, as soon as you say you’ve completed discovery, boom, you’re on the calendar. It’s good that this happened, but it doesn’t suddenly negate the damage that’s been done - in that all those cases that have been sitting around under the “old system” still need to be cleared away. And this rubbish of a malpractice suit was one of them.
Needless to say, the plaintiffs’ attorney got ripped apart on oral argument - the entire panel was vociferous on that one. So in the end, justice will probably be done. But that doesn’t refute the fact that one man’s family has had to be constantly reminded of the pain of losing a relative for a dozen years, all the while paying attorneys’ fees to be constantly reminded - only to lose in a most embarrassing fashion and in the end be no better off. I suppose they had the option to drop the charges, but I guess once you pay a suck cost, you keep on paying. Further proof as to why personal injury law is a dirty, dirty business. Someone should’ve told them the justice system can be cruel.