Malpractice petition not likely to clear

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 11:31 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An initiative petition to tighten medical malpractice laws signed by more than 90,000 voters and backed by Las Vegas doctors probably won't be approved by the Nevada Legislature.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday completed two days of hearings on the petition. Chairman Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, said a vote is expected in the next couple of days.

But Amodei said the initiative petition may not be the most responsible solution to the high medical malpractice insurance premiums that doctors face.

The Legislature must pass the petition by March 14 without any change or it will go on the election ballot in 2004.

Amodei said his committee would continue to work on another malpractice bill that was similar to the initiative petition. He suggested that bill might be a better way to approach the problem, rather than waiting for the voters' decision in 2004.

Hearings will continue in the coming weeks on Senate Bill 97, that would, among other things, further limit medical malpractice judgments and cap attorney fees.

Scott Craigie, spokesman for the doctors, said his group is working with the seven members of the committee. He declined to evaluate his chances of getting the petition out of the committee.

"There is a very complex and very emotional issue," Craigie said. "I think (the committee members) have a good sense of the issue. We're down to decision time in the next few days."

The committee heard volumes of testimony from supporters and opponents of the petition and from victims on both sides of the issue.

Nicole Byrne of Las Vegas testified she had a hard time getting an obstetrician to take her case while she was pregnant.

"I was turned away from 10 or more doctors," she said.

She pushed for the petition as a way to keep obstetricians in Nevada. But Melissa D'Andrea of Reno, tearfully told the committee about her stillborn baby.

"I lost my daughter because of negligence. The nurse did not communicate with the doctors," she testified. She said she called six lawyers before one agreed to take her case.

She urged the committee not to put further limits on the right of recovery in medical malpractice cases.

There was disagreement between the sides whether physicians, including obstetricians, were leaving Southern Nevada because of the high medical malpractice rates.

And committee members indicated they wanted the current law, passed by a special session of the Legislature last year, to be given time to work.

Dr. Robert Shreck of Las Vegas told the committee there have been double-digit increases in rates by three companies since the law became effective last October.

But state Insurance Commissioner Alice Molasky-Arman said there hasn't been enough time to evaluate whether the law is effective.

Molasky-Arman said there were 11 companies still actively writing medical malpractice insurance coverage in Nevada.

The initiative petition would limit lawyers to collecting their fees on a sliding scale from injured parties who win judgments. Shreck said a lawyer would receive $221,000 from a $1 million judgment under the initiative petition. He said a lawyer now gets $600,000 from a $1 million judgment.

Trial lawyers argued that the fees should be left alone, as a contract between the victim and the attorney. Limiting those fees might lead to lawyers refusing to take the cases, which are expensive to litigate.

The current law limits the amount paid for pain and suffering to $350,000. But that amount could go to each member of a family in which one person was the victim of a medical malpractice. The initiative would limit that to $350,000 for any one event.