Lawyers, physicians battle over
malpractice insurance
Senate bill limits jury awards to $300,000 for pain and suffering
Thursday, March 20, 2003
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG AND JOE DONOHUE
Star-Ledger Staff
Two of the most powerful groups in state politics -- the trial lawyers and physicians -- square off today as the
Senate votes on legislation intended to halt sharply increasing medical malpractice insurance premiums.
Together, the physicians and trial lawyers have spent $1.1 million during the past two years to influence lawmakers
through lobbying and political contributions, virtually canceling each other out.
An analysis of state Election Law Enforcement Commission reports for 2001 and 2002 shows the state chapter of
the Association of Trial Lawyers of America donated $436,175 to legislative candidates and spent
$163,555 lobbying, for a total of $599,730.
But the Medical Society of New Jersey was right behind with a total of $550,265, representing $316,625 in
political contributions and $233,640 in lobbying expenses.
How much clout each group carries in the Statehouse will be put to the test today as the Senate votes on a bill
imposing a $300,000 limit on what physicians or their insurers would have to pay a malpractice victim for pain
and suffering. Injured victims could collect up to an additional $700,000 from a new state fund.
The Medical Society supports the bill; ATLA-NJ adamantly opposes it.
The physicians are expected to win the initial round in the Senate today, but they face a tougher fight in the
Assembly, which passed a bill last December that is more palatable to the lawyers. Instead of limiting how
much malpractice victims could collect, it would provide state subsidies to help physicians in high-risk specialties such as
bstetrics and neurosurgery pay for medical malpractice insurance.
At a Statehouse news conference yesterday, Medical Society President Robert Rigolosi said, "A subsidy doesn't
solve the problem. The problem is these huge awards out there."
Rigolosi unveiled a study by an independent actuarial firm, Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, that concluded high jury
awards and malpractice settlements are responsible for spiraling malpractice insurance premiums
that will continue to increase if nothing is done.
James Hurley, the study's author, said passage of the Senate bill should halt or slow future increases but would be
unlikely to produce immediate rate cuts for physicians.
John Shaffer, a spokesman for the Medical Society, said the group hopes the study changes some minds in the
Assembly, but conceded, "it's going to be tough."
On Monday, Assembly Speaker Albio Sires (D-Hudson) announced the Senate's version of the malpractice bill
stands "little chance" in the Assembly.
"The Senate bill creates a fund fraught with uncertainty that merely caps at $300,000 the amount of non-economic
damages a bad doctor may have to pay if he or she does serious harm to a patient," Sires said.
Both the trial lawyers and the physicians have interests at the Statehouse that go beyond medical malpractice.
ATLA-NJ has spearheaded a major push, so far unsuccessful, to repeal the state's no-fault automobile insurance
law, which limits the right to sue. Shaffer said much of the Medical Society's lobbying effort last year was
on behalf of a new law allowing groups of physicians to negotiate fees with HMOs.
But the battle over medical malpractice insurance directly pits the trial lawyers against the physicians. Shaffer said
the doctors are the underdogs in that battle, given that a quarter of the 120 legislators are
practicing lawyers and only two are physicians.
Shaffer said the physicians, who got a law passed forbidding HMOs from sending newborn babies and their
mothers home just after birth, have "a track record of doing what's right for patients."
ATLA-NJ President Bruce Stern was not available for comment yesterday, but the organization has repeatedly
accused the physicians of selling out their patients' rights to full recovery if they are injured through malpractice.