0:01

The fourth element of a lawsuit is damages.

0:05

And this is where the plaintiff must prove that he

0:08

or she has actually suffered injury

0:12

because of the negligence of a physician.

0:15

And there are several categories of injuries, economic,

0:20

non-economic, and punitive.

0:22

And I wanna talk about each one of those.

0:25

So economic damages are literally things like

0:30

lost wages, out of pocket costs.

0:34

Um, home services, if a patient has been severely injured,

0:37

they can no longer do the normal things around the house

0:40

that they would do and have to hire help.

0:43

That all gets factored in, uh,

0:46

to the patient's or the plaintiff's.

0:49

Economic injury, lost wages, those types of things.

0:53

The second main category of damages are

0:56

what people usually refer to as non-economic,

1:01

uh, damages that relate to pain and suffering.

1:05

That's, people hear that term, pain

1:07

and suffering, loss of consortium.

1:10

And so that really involves is the patient suffering pain?

1:14

So that's something that I wanna know.

1:16

How long is the pain going on? How severe is the pain?

1:19

What sort of mental distress

1:21

or other types of issues is the patient suffering

1:25

as a result of the negligence of the physician?

1:29

And the third category of damages is punitive.

1:33

And it seems that physicians get very worried about this

1:37

category, uh,

1:39

because it can substantially increase the, an award

1:43

for a plaintiff, but it's rarely used.

1:47

And in fact, in all my 30 plus years, um,

1:50

even though we've asked the judge to apply

1:53

or allow punitive damages,

1:55

I've truly never had a single case where the judge says,

1:58

said yes, that this rises to the level.

2:00

And I've had some pretty egregious cases.

2:03

So I don't think, uh,

2:05

being concerned about punitive damages is a big concern.

2:08

Your lawyer will obviously let you know.

2:10

But typically what you should know is

2:13

that we usually hire economists

2:16

to calculate out the damages in some,

2:20

but not all states like Colorado,

2:23

the non-economic damages are fixed.

2:26

So there's a, a maximum number that you can get.

2:28

It's below, it's currently below a million.

2:31

It's gonna remain, uh, below a million for quite some time.

2:34

Uh, but every state is different.

2:37

Some don't have any caps on the non-economic portion,

2:40

but that's something that you're gonna go over

2:42

with your lawyer in terms of understanding.

2:45

So as you look at this whole process, what's important

2:49

to understand is that all four elements are required.

2:54

If I don't have all four elements, I can't bring a lawsuit.

2:59

And the other thing that is required as we get

3:03

to this stage when I'm filing a lawsuit is that most states

3:08

have something that's required called a,

3:10

a certificate of review.

3:12

And it can be called different names in different states.

3:16

But basically it's something that I, as an officer

3:19

of the court have to certify to the court

3:23

that I have had the case reviewed by a physician

3:27

with the same or similar expertise as the physician

3:31

or physicians that we are suing.

3:33

And that that physician has certified

3:36

that this case essentially has merit.

3:39

Now, they're not saying it's that we're going to win,

3:41

they're just saying yes, there's a, there's a valid reason

3:44

to go into and to look at the, uh, to look at

3:48

what happened in this case.

3:50

The other thing that I'd, I'd like to press upon you is that

3:54

I'm not interested,

3:56

and I don't think most plaintiff's lawyers are interested in

3:59

doing these little piddly cases.

4:02

One of the factors that we truly look at is what's the risk

4:06

benefit analysis all along the way.

4:09

So I see cases all the time where, okay,

4:14

we may have some an injury, but if it's gonna go away

4:18

and it's not gonna be a permanent injury, you have

4:21

to really look at what's the, what's the validity

4:24

of doing a suit that's going to cost a lot of money.

4:27

Uh, the, is there is the, uh, insurance company have

4:32

to be subrogated or paid back for what they paid, um,

4:35

how much pain and suffering was involved.

4:38

And as a general rule, I'm not interested in doing a lawsuit

4:42

unless there's significant permanent physical injury

4:47

moving forward that we can actually calculate out a,

4:52

a number that's gonna be reasonable to move forward knowing

4:55

what the costs are of litigation,

4:57

which are typically quite high.