Law
Solving Nevada’s Medical Malpractice Crisis
In their frantic attempt to put an end to Nevada’s malpractice insurance crisis, our state politicians are looking for solutions in all the wrong places.
What Does ‘Tort Reform’ Mean?
Our healthcare crisis here in Nevada is getting worse. For the last several months we have heard many prescriptions for a solution. Doctors and insurers want reform of tort (personal injury) law, but lawyers don’t. Recently, several patients expressed confusion as to what tort reform really is. So the following is intended to help explain.
Litigation As a Means of Extortion
In 20 years, Vegas has driven away three major insurance companies
I had a conversation the other day with a personal-injury attorney. He’d come by to drop off a malpractice claim against one of the doctors who is insured through my office
Humbug from Nevada's Trial Lawyers
Nevada’s crisis in medical malpractice liability is an extremely serious matter. The public health itself is at stake, because of the doctors we’re losing and the impact of that fact on health care access.
Using the Fear of Big Money to Raise . . . Big Money
According to the federal lawmakers who last week tossed the American Bill of Rights into a back-alley Dumpster, your First Amendment freedoms have to be destroyed in order to “save” political campaigning.
Nevada Needs Antitrust Reform
Antitrust law -- throughout its history and still today -- is little more than the attempt of marketplace losers to use government to deprive consumers of marketplace choice.
In the summer of 1997, Microsoft representatives were busy in Reno, publicly laying the groundwork for the company’s new Nevada-based, 160-employee international licensing operation.
Extortion Lawsuites: The Games of Callem, Cheatem & Howe
Back in February, Robert Reich, former Clinton Secretary of Labor, wrote an editorial in USA Today titled "Regulation is Out, Litigation is In." It was a liberal treatise extolling the merits of litigation as a tool for bureaucrats, not to mention mercenary-minded attorneys, announcing that "the era of big government is out, but the era of regulation through litigation had just begun." Reich was referring to the lawsuits levied against the tobacco industry and how governments at all levels would benefit— specifically by the revenue they would generate. But tobacco was just the beginning. Today we have the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit, cities throughout the country suing gun manufacturers, retroactive lawsuits against former manufacturers of lead paint and a federal suit against American Airlines. Attorneys generals throughout the country—including Nevada’s Frankie Sue Del Papa—have used these suits to promote their aspirations for higher office. But the cost to taxpayers is far too high.
Unclogging the Court System through Juvenile Justice Reform
The United States currently faces a severe juvenile crime wave. Youths violate the law with increasing frequency, and criminologists believe things are likely to get worse before they get better. States have responded to this crisis in a number of ways. Perhaps the most popular option is to "crack down" on violent offenders. These juveniles are often tried as adults and incarcerated at adult facilities.
Jumping on the Anti-Tobacco Bandwagon
Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa has joined 32 state attorneys general in filing suit against the tobacco industry. On May 21, Del Papa announced her lawsuit at a news conference in Las Vegas. But a new study by the Heartland Institute’s Michael E. DeBow exposes the shaky legal ground upon which such legal actions stand. DeBow’s analysis of the attorneys generals’ lawsuits is summarized below.
Juvenile Justice: Community Courts
Juvenile Justice experiments have been popping up across the country, some with remarkable success. If Nevada implemented the simplest of these ideas, namely, Community Juvenile Courts, the state could profit from the innovation in four ways by:
- Saving already stretched legal resources and tax dollars
- Providing long term guidance and aid to kids who have had their first brush with the law
- Taking away the gang "badge of courage" that is, arrest and incarceration
- Combining a volunteer workforce with trained judicial specialists
