Legal Developments and Risk Management Tips Impacting the Professional Liability Community.
Alex Rodriguez’s newest target is apparently the Yankees’ team physician. According to reports, A-Rod is exploring a potential malpractice suit against team doctors for “deliberately misdiagnosing” an injury that may have contributed to his woeful performance in 2012.
Invariably, during the representation of a professional, defense counsel may be asked by his or her adversary: who hired you? For a variety of reasons, opposing counsel may be interested in whether you were retained directly by the professional or you were appointed as defense counsel by an insurance company. A perfectly reasonable and appropriate response to this question could be: it’s none of your business.
All professionals who maintain professional liability insurance are familiar with the insurance application. When completing the application, professionals must make decisions regarding the type and amount of coverage, and the costs for the premium and deductible. Moreover, the professional must provide information that the insurance company’s underwriter will rely upon to weigh the risks of insuring that professional. Notably, many PL applications request historical information regarding threatened or potential litigation. This question, perhaps more than others, has led to significant coverage issues and presents a risk management concern.
It is time to revisit your password because it may be susceptible to an easy hack. The risk of cyber loss is well documented. We’ve routinely warned of these risks previously and, no doubt, will continue to do so because cyber losses are reportedly increasing, and the cost to recover from a data breach can be staggering. All professionals maintain personally identifiable data that would be a goldmine to hackers. Most professionals – hopefully all – at the very least utilize the most fundamental type of security by storing electronic data in a password protected format. But, according to a recent survey, that password may need an update.
You may be surprised to learn that some professional malpractice policies do not cover fee disputes. Professional liability insurance is an essential component of every professional’s practice, helping to mitigate risk in malpractice actions. But many professional liability policies may leave professionals to fend for themselves in one of the most fundamental aspects of the …
The workplace is often incredibly uncomfortable following an employee’s claim of work-related discrimination. The employer must balance its goal of productivity and profit while maintaining employee morale and equality on the job. At times, an employer facing a charge of discrimination may feel hamstrung by the looming charge and may permit employee conduct that was otherwise sanctionable out of fear of what may be perceived as retaliation against the employee for filing a charge. But, as the recent decision out of the Seventh Circuit proves, a charge of discrimination does not provide the employee with free rein to violate work-place protocol.
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Walgreens pharmacy was recently hit with a $1.4 million verdict for divulging sensitive patron information. The suit arises from one of the more peculiar set of facts you’ll encounter but the takeaway is important to all. Pharmacy chains have increasingly become the targets of lawsuits mostly stemming from the improper administration of prescriptions or the failure to give appropriate warnings. But some recent suits involve a dilemma that all professionals face in this digital age: the failure to adequately protect sensitive and confidential data.
Technological advancements have prompted an explosion in electronically stored information (ESI). A single laptop computer is capable of holding more than 2,000 banker’s boxes of paper, and a smart phone with 16 GB of memory can hold roughly the equivalent of 1,000,000 printed pages. Given the potential value of this data, litigants are routinely requesting ESI during discovery. At the same time, lawyers responding to these requests are faced with the Herculean task of sorting through mountains of evidence to remove privileged or confidential documents. This presents a risk management nightmare.
A recently released study demonstrates that most medical malpractice claims stem from missing serious illnesses and medical conditions. The international study specifically focused on claims asserted against primary care physicians because of their role as the first line of care for patients. The results of the study are noteworthy but not necessarily surprising.