ABSTRACT
Based on case studies indicating that apologies from physicians to patients can promote healing, understanding, and dispute resolution, thirty-nine states (and the District of Columbia) have sought to reduce litigation and medical malpractice liability by enacting apology laws. Apology laws facilitate apologies by making them inadmissible as evidence in subsequent malpractice trials …
The analysis demonstrates that for physicians who regularly perform surgery – a context in which patients are more likely to be aware of potential risks – apology laws do not have a substantial effect on the probability that a physician will face a claim or the average payment made to resolve a claim. For nonsurgeons, we find that apology laws increase the probability of facing a lawsuit and increase the average payment made to resolve a claim, a finding which is consistent with the presence of asymmetric information. Overall, our findings indicate that on balance, apology laws increase rather than limit medical malpractice liability risk.
Benjamin J McMichael, R Lawrence Van Horn and W Kip Viscusi, “Sorry” Is Never Enough: How State Apology Laws Fail to Reduce Medical Malpractice Liability Risk, 71 Stanford Law Review 341 (2019).
First posted 2019-03-06 13:41:10
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