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(AP) LOS ANGELES - David Carradine’s widow filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against a French company handling the actor’s last film, claiming it failed to provide proper services to protect him.

EDINBURG — As wrongful death cases go, the one that almost predictably followed the fatal fall of construction worker Antonio Rivas in McAllen in May 2002 was unremarkable in every respect but one. A lawsuit against the company that employed Rivas was quickly filed by lawyers from the Watts Law Firm on behalf of Rivas' widow, Maria Zuniga, and his aging mother, Cayetana Rivas, who lived across the Rio Grande in a small border village. In August 2003, the case was settled for $1.8 million, but that did not end the matter. Now pending in Hidalgo County is another suit,...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-Republicans in the California Legislature are aiming to level the state's legal landscape through a handful of bills they say will also help jumpstart the state's sputtering economy. Backed by the state's tort reform group, the bills face an uncertain future -- at best -- given that both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Democrats, often sympathetic to trial lawyers who distribute huge amounts of campaign cash each election cycle.

President Barack Obama wants a bipartisan deal on health reform, but trial lawyers don’t want him to deal on a top Republican priority: tort reform. Trial lawyers defeated President George W. Bush’s push for medical liability reform and successfully lobbied to water down tort reform provisions in healthcare reform bills this Congress. But the battle is far from over.

America’s litigation-friendly legal system continues to impose a heavy burden on our economy. The annual direct cost of American tort litigation—excluding much securities litigation, punitive damages, and the multibillion-dollar settlement reached between the tobacco companies and the states in 1998—exceeds $250 billion, almost 2 percent of gross domestic product.[1] The indirect costs of excessive litigiousness (for example, the unnecessary tests and procedures characterizing the practice of “defensive” medicine, or the loss of the fruits of research never undertaken on account of the risk of abusive lawsuits) are probably much greater than the direct costs themselves.[2] Of course, tort litigation does...

This is a personal perspective, but it comes from having worked in Healthcare for more than a quarter century. You want to bring down the cost of healthcare? Start by reigning in the trial lawyers. It is estimated that about 5% (and that's on the low side) of all medical procedures done in America today are unnecessary but performed specifically as “defensive medicine” to help protect the doctor or hospital from a malpractice lawsuit. Eliminating just that 5% would save $110 billion a year. This does not include any downstream benefit from reduced insurance premiums and litigation costs. Medical Tort...

. . . This latest round may come as good news to Teilhard Shareholders who invested in the company many years ago to fund these type of legal battles. A small number of shareholders are being sued by Teilhard for defamation over comments made on this blog during the first legal battle so you better watch what you say in the comments section of this post!

(PDF Format) Free Congress Foundation Commentary The Major Incurable Disease – Tort Terror By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. October 21, 2009 Unlike other countries, our Federal system and many of our State judicial systems encourage litigation against physicians and hospitals. The practice of medicine is almost unimaginatively sophisticated, as applicable knowledge continually becomes more complicated and more extensive.

Below are some suggestions for lawmakers and judges to bring about a more just country: Intolerance-Justice should be based on each case and circumstance involving current law and precedent. The idiotic case of six-year-old Zachary Christie is akin to the type of lack of foresight that has parents throughout the land scratching their heads. Zachary had NO CLUE he was committing a crime with a nonflexible sentence of 45 days in a reform school. His crime? As a proud new Cub Scout, he brought a multifaceted eating and tool utensil to his school to show his little friends. Conclusion? When...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rejected the idea of incorporating tort reform into the health care legislation now under consideration. The issue arose when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that tort reform could reduce health care costs by $54 billion over the next decade. “Look, $54 billion is a drop in the bucket for a program that will cost at least $2 trillion over the same period,” Reid observed. “The impact on the taxpayers will be inconsequential.” Reid contrasted the “minuscule savings for taxpayers with the devastating impact that reducing tort costs would have on trial lawyers. The benefit...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-While California lawmakers are traditionally busy in their home districts during autumn, after the state Legislature recesses, this year they will be called into at least three special sessions to address a bevy of complex issues. Not among them is legal reform, which proponents say would help kick-start California's lagging economy and draw new industry to the Golden State, where unemployment has topped 12 percent,

Since passing tort reform in 2004, Mississippi has seen the number of medical malpractice claims plummet by 91 percent from its peak. The state's largest medical liability insurer dropped its premiums by 42 percent, and has offered an additional 20 percent rebate each year since tort reform went into effect. That is the story that Mississippi's Republican, governor, Haley Barbour, offered on Friday, speaking at the Heritage Foundation. He also made an observation about President Obama's decision to offer only token "demonstration projects" on lawsuit abuse rather than address it meaningfully in his health care reform proposal.

In his address last week, President Obama said he had talked to some doctors and learned that medical procedures were being done that may not be necessary due to fear of medical malpractice lawsuits, and he entertained the idea of tort reform, saying we could try it in some states with pilot projects. But there's no need for a pilot project. Texas enacted malpractice reform years ago. The president would benefit from a phone call to Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)....

In his speech before Congress last week, President Obama attempted to win Republican support for his health care overhaul by agreeing to consider including medical malpractice reform in his plan. In an interview that aired on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday the president shed some more light on what he meant -- and in which form he will not accept tort reform. (Read the transcript of the president's interview here.) ...

I was just watching Linda Douglass, Obama poodle, on FOX NEWS. She refused to answer whether BHO was going to promote TORT REFORM in his dog 'n pony show tonight...she merely said "Obama has talked about it a lot." blah blah blah So my question is: could Obama create "tort reform" this way: MAKE EVERY DOCTOR A DEFACTO EMPLOYEE OF THE GOVERNMENT. THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE SUED--SO NO LAWSUITS AGAINST DOCTORS WOULD BE PERMITTED. I know Obama and the libs are in bed with trial lawyers, so this may not happen...but it crossed my mind.

Howard Dean claims TORT reform would 'make enemies'August 28, 10:07 AM Mesa Independent Examiner Christina Wijfjes-Smit There is a new battle cry being touted in the ongoing debate of health care reform by a growing number of Americans; TORT reform. TORT reform would limit the circumstances under which injured people may sue or limit the amount a jury can award at trial, or both. Doctors are forced to spend an enormous amount of money on mal-practice insurance due to the ever growing number of frivolous law suits filed. The increase of cost to the doctor trickles down to the patient...

Sarah Palin is calling for Tort Reform to be the hallmark of any kind of health care reform: President Obama's health care "reform" plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what...

Former Governor Palin continues her bit by bit attack on Obama's health care plan with her latest piece on his plan on Facebook. This one focuses on the need for tort reform and the lack of it in Obama's plan.

... snip ... 'Tort Tax' Raises Costs Medical malpractice liability--"the 'tort tax' on doctors and hospitals, whose costs constitute the majority of health expenses," as it is described in the report--has grown much faster than overall health care inflation, according to 2004 data from the global management corporation Tillinghast-Towers Perrin. Medical malpractice liability alone constitutes more than 10 percent of the U.S. tort tax, which by 2003 represented more than $3,300 for the average family of four, according to Tillinghast-Towers Perrin. Medical malpractice tort claims awarded by courts, as well as pretrial settlements, provide U.S. trial lawyers with their largest...

The elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about is the very high and escalating cost of malpractice insurance that every health care provider must recover if they are going to practice medicine in this country. It all starts with tort reform -- putting some limits on the liability that our providers are exposed to whenever malpractice is charged or suspected. If there were some sensible limits in place, then there would not be the pressure to practice defensive medicine. Some estimates of the cost to our system of defensive medicine range upwards of 25-30 percent of...