Health Court Bills In Congress

Legislation is being considered in both houses of Congress to fund pilot projects in 10 states that would create administrative panels known as “health courts.” This legislation is being strongly supported the medical and insurance lobby. The legislation is based on systems in Scandinavia and New Zealand. The state of Florida also has an existing administrative procedure for dealing with birth-related neurological injuries.
The legislation, if passed in its current form, would eliminate jury trials in medical negligence cases. The standard by which the actions of health care providers is judged would not be the traditional negligence standard, but one of avoidability. All decisions would be made by health court judges who could rely on experts serving on specialized panels. Damages would be limited to a range of predetermined amounts which are assigned to specific injuries.
Similar bills were introduced last year, but were modified and reintroduced this year following intense scrutiny during Congressional hearings. The requirements were modified to allow patients to voluntarily withdraw from participating in the health court proceeding due to serious concerns about the constitutionality of denying access to juries.
One of the prime arguments in favor of health courts is that juries lack the knowledge-base needed to resolve medical negligence claims fairly. However, a study conducted by Philip G. Peters Jr., a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, refutes this contention. After examining three decades of studies on jury decisions in medical malpractice cases, he concluded that juries actually perform very well. Peters found that in cases with weak evidence juries agreed with the assessments of expert reviewers nearly 90 percent of the time. He also found that juries overwhelmingly favor defendant doctors, even in cases where the evidence against them is strong.