How Edwards got rich-suing MDs is how:
Most people who follow politics already know that the Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from North Carolina earned his millions through work as a trial lawyer but what Edwards own web site does not mention is that he earned tens of millions by suing obstetricians over allegations of "botched" deliveries. The problem with this is that cerebral palsy (an umbrella term referring to several conditions of neurological damage present in newborns or neonates) has many different causes other than negligent malpractice by the obstetrician at the time of birth. According to emedicine;
"Given the complexity of the brain and its vulnerability during many stages of development, it is subject to injury at several times. Cerebral ischemia before the 20th week of gestation can result in a neuronal migration deficit; between the 26th and 34th weeks, periventricular leukomalacia; and between the 34th and 40th weeks, focal or multifocal cerebral injury."
Fetal neural injury can occur at multiple times throughout gestation and this is very difficult to detect until after birth. From a clinical standpoint it can be very difficult to determine the exact mechanism and the exact time of injury. From the same emedicine article (with added emphasis);
"To ascribe the cause of CP to intrapartum asphyxia, no clinical evidence should point to potential antenatal injury, absence of antenatal cerebral injury by neuroimaging, clinical evidence of severe perinatal asphyxia, or exclusion of other causes of neonatal encephalopathy. Given that prenatal factors greatly outnumber perinatal factors in the origin of CP and that prenatal factors are difficult to isolate from perinatal and postnatal factors as a cause for CP, determining causality due to intapartum asphyxia or medical neglect is difficult."
The figure that I have heard most often from the literature is that only 3-13% of CP cases could be attributed to a lack of oxygen at birth and these studies do not look at whether the damage was associated with gross negligence. It is quite likely that the numbers of CP cases actually caused by negligence on the part of the obstetrician during the perinatal period (as evidenced by obvious deviation from standards of care or delays in treatment) are actually extremely small. A 1994 review article in the New England Journal of Medicine cited several studies going as far back as 1988 which suggest that "for the vast majority of children born at term in whom cerebral palsy later develops, the disorder cannot reasonably be ascribed to birth injury or hypoxic-ischemic insults during delivery"!
Despite all this evidence to the contrary plaintiffs in malpractice cases involving cerebral palsy have won 54% of their cases (above the rate of 39% of cases that plaintiffs in any malpractice case win) as recently as 2002! What is going on? Does this mean that we have a ton of incompetent and grossly negligent obstetricians in this country? Not likely. What we see in many malpractice cases (perhaps almost all) for cerebral palsy are perfect examples of how the malpractice tort system is broken.
In addition to the fact that research since the late 1980's proves that fetal injury is very unlikely to have occurred at birth, a trial lawyer need not prove definitively to a jury of lay people that the obstetrician directly caused the injury. Often all that needs to be proven was that the injury did occur and that the obstetrician was somewhere near the room in which the birth occurred. Often cases hinge on picky details of the delivery that while very unlikely to have caused any injury are used by plaintiffs attorneys to put enough doubt into the minds of the jury in order to win a judgment. How else can we explain such a successful win rate despite over a decade of evidence to the contrary?
Yet as recently as 1997, Edwards successfully litigated a case of a "botched" delivery and "beat his own record" by winning $30 MILLION dollars for the plaintiff (he won another case that year for $23 MILLION). I don't know the details of these cases but one has to wonder if North Carolina was suffering a crisis in completely incompetent obstetricians! The physicians in these cases must have done something bordering on criminal activity (assault?) in order to have lost the case on the order of tens of millions . . but I doubt it. How does Edwards win such massive awards when he has scientific evidence going against him? CNS News notes that Edwards often uses a favorite tactic of trial lawyers; the "Heart wrenching plea".
As a trial lawyer, he relied more on his verbal skills than the latest scientific evidence to persuade juries that the doctors' mistakes had been instrumental in causing the cerebral palsy in the infants.
Edwards' trial summaries "routinely went beyond a recitation of his case to a heart-wrenching plea to jurors to listen to the unspoken voices of injured children," according to a comprehensive analysis of Edwards' legal career by The Boston Globe in 2003. The Globe cited an example of Edwards' oratorical skills from a medical malpractice trial in 1985. Edwards had alleged that a doctor and a hospital had been responsible for the cerebral palsy afflicting then-five-year-old Jennifer Campbell.
'I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,' Edwards told the jury according to court records. "[Jennifer's] inside me and she's talking to you ... And this is what she says to you. She says, 'I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'"
Edwards' emotional plea worked. Jennifer Campbell's family won a record jury verdict of $6.5 million against the hospital where the girl was born -- a judgment reduced later to $2.75 million on appeal. Edwards also settled with Jennifer's obstetrician for $1.5 million.
Who cares about proof, or evidence, or justice when you can leverage the tragic story of a 5-year-old girl to siphon millions out of the insurance companies! These often successful tactics benefit trial lawyers in many other ways. For example, according to Dr. John Freeman, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md (cited in the same article) a staggering 90% of malpractice cases for CP are settled out of court. The trial lawyers ability to emotionally manipulate a jury into awarding obscene amounts to the plaintiff despite all the evidence to the contrary has scared most obstetricians (or their insurance companies) into settling out of court. I don't blame them.
Cerebral Palsy cases have become a cash cow for successful trial lawyers like Edwards.
The judgments or settlements related to medical malpractice lawsuits that focused on brain-damaged infants with cerebral palsy helped Edwards amass a personal fortune estimated at between $12.8 and $60 million. He and his wife own three homes, each worth more than $1 million, according to Edwards' Senate financial disclosure forms. Edwards' old law firm reportedly kept between 25 and 40 percent of the jury awards/settlements during the time he worked there. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Edwards was able to win "more than $152 million" based on his involvement in 63 lawsuits alone.
Many people don't blame Edwards saying that his actions were completely legal and he was very good at what he did. But whether or not you believe that he was essentially manipulating the system in order to plunder insurance companies and amass personal wealth, he is now spinning his court victories into the idea that he " fought on behalf of the common man against the large insurance companies". If this is true then is there any evidence that Edwards fought for the common man when there was not much in it for him? If an unlicensed midwife without insurance truly botched a delivery did we hear of Edwards coming to the rescue?
Does Edwards consider malpractice insurance to actually be "cerebral palsy insurance" that should compensate the plaintiff regardless of whether or not there was any malpractice? Is this what he means by "fighting the large insurance companies"? Does he even care that because of these massive awards, malpractice insurance for obstetricians has sky rocketed to a point where many may be forced to move or quit the business thus slowly degrading North Carolinians access to health care? Edwards appears all too willing to risk such potential harm to the health care system for the benefit of a scant few cases (and the benefit of his own pocketbook). If this is what Edwards means by "fighting for the common man" I'd hate to see what he has in mind for the rest of America should he become president!
How would Edwards be as president? I don't know for sure but it does not seem to be a far cry to suggest that in the very least an Edwards administration would be self-serving towards his profession. As Senator, Edwards opposed independent reviews of cases before going to court, opposed caps on noneconomic jury awards, and co-sponsored the so called "Patients Bill of Rights" which would have made it easier for patients to sue their health care providers both in state as well as Federal court in order to get around existing state caps on jury awards.
And it doesn't help that law firms and lawyers across the country have been giving millions to the Edwards campaign (about 50% of the total raised by Edwards so far) and in typical lawyer style they have been trying to get around the individual contributions limit of $2,000 by making it appear that each employee, their relatives, and their pets had each contributed $2,000. If and when Edwards becomes President at least we'll know whose pocket he's in.
Edwards has taken the same trial lawyer method of sweet talking the jury and used it to sweet talk the press and Democratic caucuses voters in Iowa and it appears to be working. Of course it's not hard these days with Dean's stage outbursts and tantrums and Bush's war mongering to play the "nice" and sunny candidate and get away with it. But there is nothing nice or sunny about Edward's past. Even though what he did was legal it was not ethical to so manipulate the system for the sole benefit of himself and a few clients without any regard as to how such massive jury awards will affect the health care system.
Edwards is in this very position by virtue of getting rich off the backs of doctors, hospitals, and nurses and by exploitation of some very tragic cases of cerebral palsy (though the plaintiffs get millions this sort of thing is still exploitation none the less). At least Bush didn't get to the white house by exploiting the system and by stepping on people (he was born rich).
If Edwards hopes to be President someday then I would suggest that he learn three important lessons. #1. Manipulating the system for the benefit of a hand picked few does not mean that you are a defender of the poor and downtrodden. #2. Attacking and exploiting important sectors of our society such as health care and insurance for the benefit of a small subset of the population is bound to have bad, unintended consequences that will affect everyone. #3. Being President of the United States means that you are a leader to all Americans not just victims of CP or the poor or the unemployed.
rangelmd.com |
