The legendary legal observer, Bugs Bunny, once inquired, ”What`s up, Doc?” So have we, discovering that Illinois doctors are plotting another legislative battle with the trial lawyers over medical malpractice lawsuits.
Two years ago, the lawyers were bloodied by the doctors after a lobbying blitz at the Illinois General Assembly. Pinstripes shook as the doctors even abandoned their normal mode of transport, Mercedes and BMWs, instead taking buses and trains to appear en masse at the state Capitol like the salt of the earth.
The result included changes that generally made it more burdensome for lawyers to file malpractice suits against doctors, even after the state Supreme Court struck down some provisions of the new law.
Dr. Jere Freidheim, president of the Illinois State Medical Society, concedes the changes have sharply reduced the number of medical malpractice suits. But he says malpractice insurance premiums have not come down and more must be done.
It explains why a quiet yet intense and expensive lobbying campaign has again enlisted the likes of James Fletcher, former campaign manager for Gov. James Thompson and a partner at Chicago`s Winston & Strawn; and John Simon, Thompson`s personal attorney, the son of Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon and a partner at Jenner & Block.
Specific legisation has yet to be drafted. But the most controversial proposals will call for putting a $250,000 limit on the amount of damages that can be recovered for intangible personal costs–such as pain and suffering and loss of companionship–due to an injury from medical negligence. The doctors claim that such jury awards are based too much on mere emotion.
The doctors also want to revise sharply downward the time within which a minor might sue for medical negligence. Currently, a minor can sometimes sue up until the time he or she is 22 years old, even if the injury occurred at birth. The proposed change would bar a suit by a minor injured at birth after age 10.
About 375 doctors attended a kickoff campaign for the medical society`s strategy at the Drake Oakbrook Hotel. The doctors were given a handy-dandy
”Physician Leadership Kit,” which included a month-by-month schedule for the lobbying agenda, which began in November.
Moreover, it had sample editorials and letters to the editor and, in a section to please the most hardened media consultant, cautioned against using certain words or phrases that could ”backfire.”
For example, instead of telling an audience, ”We want to reduce our malpractice insurance premiums,” a doctor is urged to say, ”We want to reduce the needless costs we`re all forced to pay because of the malpractice crisis.”
The doctors, of course, use more than words. According to reports filed Monday with the Illinois State Board of Elections, the medical society`s political action committee spent $280,153 between July 30 and Jan. 2. That`s $40,000 more than it spent in the 12 months before passage of the 1985 medical malpractice legislation.
The doctors have now organized teams in 80 percent of Illinois hospitals with the goal of personally contacting each legislator and media outlet. Needless to say, the lawyers are opposed to any cap on damages and last year beat back attempts to limit personal injury litigation.
So far, Freidheim finds, the trial lawyers, whose Monday PAC filing showed them to have spent $130,040 during the same period, have been lying low. That makes him edgy. ”They were caught by surprise two years ago,” he says. ”They`ve been kind of quiet so far and that makes us cautious.”
BILKERS LIVING IT UP
It`s a good thing that Jenny Joutsen, 87, senile, living in a Glenview nursing home and with $4,426 left to her name, doesn`t know all that`s going on around her. Having been ripped off once by Lawrence and Donna Woodfield, she might well wonder when she`ll finally be made financially whole.
Five years ago, the couple, then living in Lincolnwood, pleaded guilty, and each did some prison time, for bilking the widow out of $100,000 in life savings. It happened when Donna Woodfield was living in a West Fullerton Avenue two-flat owned by Joutsen and Joutsen`s late husband and included a series of slimy maneuvers, like having Joutsen sign over her power of attorney.
Prosecution stemmed from vigorous, even combative efforts of Public Guardian Patrick Murphy. Those efforts have resurfaced in recent weeks as Murphy, furious with the slow pace of the restitution the couple had agreed to, hired a former FBI agent to check them out. He found they`d moved to a very nice Barrington home along the Fox River, complete with a boat, dock, two snowmobiles and a recent model van and passenger car. He told Judge Richard Dowdle he wants the $41,236 still owed paid off now since ”this isn`t a loan, it`s a theft.” Moreover, he demanded to see their tax returns, as promised in an original agreement.
Last week, Howard London, representing the Woodfields, said they planned to pay everything off within 20 months. On Monday, he called Murphy aide Zoe Marshall and said he`ll show up Wednesday with a certified check for all the money. Hopefully, the Woodfields` largesse won`t crimp any summer barbecuing along the Fox River.
BEWARE, GOLF CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
Life is tough. So is golf.
Richard Guzzino and Robert Ciarrocchi were convicted for orchestrating the Marx Brothers-like bungling of an assassination attempt on South Side rackets bigshot Alfred Pilotto on a Crete golf course in 1981. Pilotto was shot five times on the 8th tee at Lincolnshire Country Club, the start to a presumably peaceful 380-yard par four hole.
One of Pilotto`s foursome, Sam Guzzino, brother of Richard, was later found dead with his throat slit, which appeared to suggest that Pilotto enemies take a traditional form of golf wagering, known as a Skins game, a bit too literally.
The federal appeals court just affirmed the convictions of Guzzino and Ciarrocchi, who received 15 years and 10 years in prison, respectively
(triggerman Daniel Bounds has entered the witness protection program). While doing so, Judge Harlington Wood Jr., heretofore not confused with Bob Hope, Richard Pryor or Rodney Dangerfield, ventured into vaguely comic territory.
”This . . . factual situation demonstrates that in some circles golfing is a very serious business,” he wrote. ”It appears that you cannot always trust the other members of your foursome, not just because they may fudge a little on their scores, but because one of them may have you murdered before the game is over.”
BRIEFS: Ed Scanlan wins a $3 million settlement for the husband and two children of a 32-year-old woman who died three weeks after giving birth by Caeserean section. Doctors at Oak Park Hospital were accused of leaving a 16- by-14-inch sponge in her abdomen, prompting a massive infection that led to her death. It was settled during the third week of trial. . . . Attorney Estelle Linn loses a suit that charged the Department of Housing and Urban Development with age, sex and race discrimination for promoting a black, Lewis Nixon, not her, to regional counsel here in 1983. Martin Lowery and Ann Wallace of the U.S. attorney`s office, defended HUD in a two-day trial. . . . Top labor lawyer Peggy Hillman splits her partnership at Cotton Watt Jones & King and sets up shop at 359 W. Chicago Ave.
Artist Marcia Danits, best known for longtime courtroom work for Channel 2, has an exhibition of more adventurous oil-on-paper paintings through Mar. 7 at Steiner Gallery, 1463 W. Chicago Ave.
Appeals court reverses District Judge Ann Williams, who had ordered South Sider Mylon Cross, convicted in 1978 for rape, deviate sexual assault, kidnaping and battery, released due to allegedly inadequate work by the public defender`s office. In a ruling based on an appeal from Assistant Illinois Atty. Gen. David Bindi, it sends the case back for a new hearing but lets Cross, represented by Frederick Cohn, remain free on bond. . . . Splitting Pope Ballard for Katten Muchin are labor specialists Howard Bernstein and Brian Bulger. . . . Oak Park attorney Ronald Draper gets hit for $500 by a federal appeals court for showing ”a lack of respect” via late filings, while bigtime Florida drug lawyer Mark Krasnow is ordered to fork over $1,000 for ignoring court orders.
