Reimold Sues Johns Hopkins Hospital

[CA-ORIOLE]

I don't jest at all. As you note, plaintiff's attorneys work on contingency fees. If you don't win, you don't get paid. Generally people want to believe their doctors are good. Accordingly, jurors will tend to give doctors the benefit of the doubt. At best, most malpractice cases are 50/50 propositions. They also are fiercely litigated and require a substantial time investment. On top of that, they are expensive. A case like this one without the economic element would probably cost almost $100k to try. That $100k isn't attorney time. Those are expenses for experts, illustrations, depositions, etc.

So if your are a lawyer evaluating a case and think you have a 50/50 shot at winning and if you lose are out $100k plus maybe a 1000 hours of time, a $240k (actually probably $270k since cases in lit are usually on a 40% fee) upside isn't always going to be worth it. This is especially true if you are up against a famous Hopkins physician and it is far from a given that a jury would award $725k for perhaps a year of pain (which couldn't have been too bad since he was playing baseball) and the pain of a revision surgery.

Ehh, get it and settle. Costs very little and works quite often.

[OriolesMagic83]

Reimold needs to have some witnesses from the Hangout. I remember last year when the O's released him, some posters wrote that he was going to help win the pennant for the Blue Jays. He was projected to be a second half all-star for the Blue Jays.

[baltfan]

Ehh, get it and settle. Costs very little and works quite often.

While many med mal cases settle, almost all go through some amount of litigation. Insurers for doctors don't just rollover. If you want to go out of business as a lawyer, take med mal cases assuming that they will settle. These are almost always extended expensive fights.

[tntoriole]

Hopkins is a teaching hospital. You have to be careful going there, you really don't know what type of care will get.

Ha, ha. The "teacher" was doing the surgery on Nolan and their skills and teams are the best in the world. Doesn't mean mistakes weren't possible.

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