The Alabama Supreme Court has decided three medical malpractice cases in the last few months: Giles v. Brookwood Health Services, Weber v. Freeman, and Panayiotou v. Johnson. All three were decided in favor of the defendant doctor. All three decide as to who was at fault for the plaintiffs’ injuries/death out of the hands of the jury. I thought the Alabama medical malpractice lawyers in all three cases made quality arguments that the cases should go to a jury.
Giles was a complicated case involving three defendants. What I found frustrating about the opinion is that the court told the Plaintiff’s expert that “you really say what you think you said” about the standard of care. Why take this kind of medical malpractice case out of a jury’s hands?
Weber involved a nice Alabama rule to allow medical malpractice lawyers to name fictional defendants when the lawyer does not know who the real defendants are. Alabama Rule 9(h), Ala. R. Civ. P., provides: