Crazymonk,
I am really enjoying the article, but aren't you preaching to the choir? I.E. what's with the comments?

what's with what comments?

choir? maybe. the medical malpractice thing is sort of obscure, so I'm not sure everyone has made up their minds on it.

I just usually think that whole medical malpractice suits are out of control as a typically Republican opinion.

I think they've done a good job of convincing average people that frivolous lawsuits are a real problem.

Err, I took the opposite conculsion from it, Lorelei. Frivolous lawsuits *aren't* a real problem -- they state that most frivolous suits are dismissed out of hand by courts -- and in fact the problem is that there are quite of bit of medical injuries, and some are neven even litigated upon.

By "they," I meant Republicans and others who decry frivolous lawsuits. Maybe it wasn't clear that I was responding to the Rodenator.

I was actually really pleased that this article had so much evidence to back up my belief that most lawsuits aren't frivolous, although statistics are easy to manipulate.

Sorry. I got ya.

Frivilous lawsuits ARE a problem, but capping the awards on non-frivilous lawsuits is not a valid solution to that problem. The valid solution is, oddly, more lawsuits. Lawyers who help clients file frivilous lawsuits should be forced to pay for the costs of those lawsuits... Technically, they're already liable for that under rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:

"(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions therein are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law;"

"If, after notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, the court determines that subdivision (b) has been violated, the court may, subject to the conditions stated below, impose an appropriate sanction upon the attorneys, law firms, or parties that have violated subdivision (b) or are responsible for the violation."

Hey, look, I learned something in law school!

True: Most medical malpractice goes unrecognized. Patients rarely know their treatment and not their illness made life worse. Many patients even knowing their doctor goofed do not know what to do about it. Many patients who do file a lawsuit get niggledy from it and fail to get any care for their medically caused injuries.
There is really no such thing as a frivolous case, only lost cases.