Call Today, Oppose Allowing Trial Lawyers to Quantify Pain & Suffering

Legislative language that would permit trial lawyers to quantify damages for pain and suffering, something that should be left up to juries, was inserted into a loosely related bill and passed by the House of Representatives. The state Senate may vote on this measure early next week. 

“If this precedent-setting measure is passed by the Senate, the camel’s nose is under the tent and the next step is trial lawyers arguing dollar amounts for pain and suffering in medical liability cases.  That would be tragic for both patients and physicians,” said Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) President James A. Goodyear, MD. 

PaACEP urges physicians to call or email their Pennsylvania senators today to oppose House Bill 2246, which contains this language. Tell them that this would confuse juries because it allows evidence to be mixed with non-verifiable opinion and would drive up the cost of awards. 

Use Capwiz to call your state senators to oppose HB 2246. 

Earlier this year, a handful of bills were introduced in the state House that would loosen tort laws in favor of trial lawyers, increase medical liability payouts, and drive up the cost of liability insurance.  PaMED strongly opposed these bills and coordinated efforts to fight the legislation with other health care and business organizations. The chapter is supporting the PaMED efforts to defeat the Trial Bar’s legislative end-run.

The bills were introduced at the request of the state’s trial bar association, which now calls itself the Pennsylvania Association for Justice. While those bills haven’t moved, unfortunately, the language to quantify pain and suffering awards was quickly inserted into HB 2246, which is a bill dealing with automobile accident claims.