I, and the other attorneys in my firm, represent people who experience tragedies in their lives. Sometimes clients do receive justice.

Sometimes the defendants make honest mistakes, other times their neglect is particularly egregious.

The case I recently tried, with Greg Barnhart and Matt Schwencke in my firm, was flagrant because the nature of the negligence was so preventable. The case was particularly tragic because of the emotional devastation suffered by the parents of a child struck down before his life even began.

How many times have you tried to pull out of a parking lot into traffic, only to have your vision of the roadway partially or totally blocked by a bush, a sign or some other obstruction? How many times as you pull across the sidewalk do you think to yourself, “Why the property owner couldn’t cut their bushes?”

My last case involved a death trap designed by the people who were supposed to make sure the trap did not exist: the land owner and their property management company.

The trap resulted in the death of 9 year old Andrew Curtis, struck and killed by a motorist who could not see him on his bike while exiting at Jupiter’s Villas on the Green Condominium complex. The trap resulted in the emotional destruction of the lives of Andrew’s parents, Tracy Curtis and Andre Kovacs.

This tragic crash occurred one afternoon while Andrew and his father Andre were riding their bikes and approaching the drive way to the condominium complex. Andre and Andrew could not see the car coming out of the exit way and the driver could not see them as a result of the unmaintained bushes and poor placement of a stop sign. The driver pulled through the exit and ran right over the top of Andrew’s head.

I am not a mother and when I handle cases involving the death of children, I always try to gain a firm appreciation for parents suffering the sudden and unexpected death of their children.  The emotional loss for parents who is devastating especially when the death is sudden, unexpected and preventable.

They will never see Andrew his first homerun, surf his first tough wave or see the joy of his first soccer goal. They will not see their child go to the prom, attend college, fall in love for the first time, get married or have grandchildren run through their home.

No amount of money will ever make it better. In our society, though, the rendering of a full verdict is the only way a parent who has suffered losing their beloved son can legally obtain some amount of justice, some amount of closure.

We were in trial on the case for several weeks. We made multiple efforts to reasonably resolve the case with the defendants in an effort to keep our clients from having to relive losing their son over again, the defendants were not interested.

After requiring my clients to relive losing their son and the circumstances of that loss, the jury found that the condominium’s property management company 60% at fault and the condominium association 30% at fault and awarded a $12 million verdict. Sadly, the defendants even tried to place blame on Andrew’s father Andre, claiming that he should have been able to keep Andrew from being struck by the car.

Clearly our trial team had illustrated my clients’ devastation to the jury in a way they would ask to give my clients what they really needed: someone who said they understood and were sorry for their loss.

After the verdict was read, the foreperson said, “Judge, we just have one request, can we hug the parents?” It was the most moving moment in my 18 year professional career.

I have been asked by friends and family: “how do you pick a trial lawyer?”

I even have those calls about my friend needing a lawyer and wanting the “meanest, nastiest lawyer you know”.

So, how do you pick a lawyer or law firm?

Should you base it on a law firm’s commercials? Do you base it on how much the lawyer says they can get you? Do you base it on a firm’s website or their print materials? Do you ask around to friends and people you trust?

A law firm may advertise on television, but let’s be honest, that is largely to keep their name in your mind or in the mind of the public as a whole. If the law firm “promises” something in the ad, ask yourself if it is really something they can promise.

What was the case about?

These are all meaningless and statements of utter nonsense without the really important information:

• What were Bill’s injuries?
• How much were Bill’s medical bills and lost wages?
• How long did it take to settle Bill’s case?
• Would it have been smarter and more beneficial to Bill if he had gone to trial and had an experienced trial lawyer in the courtroom?

After over 35 years working for insurance companies and lawyers, I can tell you with absolute certainty that settling someone’s case for $361,000 when it is actually worth $750,000, for example, is easy. Any neophyte can settle a case for a fraction of its value and insurance companies love dealing with law firms and lawyers who settle their clients’ cases for only a fraction of the real value.

It requires attorneys with special skills and loyalty to clients to recommend cases not be settled for dimes on the dollar. It requires lawyers skilled in the courtroom with real trial experience to recommend a client take their case to a jury to receive fair compensation for their loss or injury.

When you need a competent attorney who will look out for your best interests first, you should have the following information to consider:

Education. Where did the attorney go to school and where is that school rated in terms of other law schools. What grades did the attorney receive? Where the lawyer received their degree is an important piece of information, but much like any other professionals; I have known unqualified lawyers who went to Harvard and highly competent lawyers who went Youngstown State Law School.

What types of law have you practiced? Hiring a lawyer to handle a matter that may go to trial when she has been doing real estate closing for the past 10 years is probably not the best selection. Ask what other firms they have practiced with and what made them come here to their present firm.

Are you “board certified”? Have you received any awards for superior practice? Are you included in “Best Lawyers”?

How much experience have they had with a case like yours? Experienced lawyers can usually rattle off several similar cases. They can also, usually, provide descriptions detailed enough while avoiding disclosing client confidences.

Who works with them? Do they have a secretary dedicated only to them? Do they have a paralegal? Do they have research attorneys? What other resources do they have at their disposal for which they will not charge you an additional cost?

How much in settlement or verdict did you get for your clients in those cases. Sometimes cases are settled with confidential settlements and in those cases the attorney may not discuss amounts; but qualified attorneys typically have plenty of case examples.

Who, besides the attorney, can you speak to about your case?

How long will my case take to conclude? The majority of cases are settled for amounts fair to all concerned, but some cases have to be taken to trial. Some defendants are not reasonable. Most experienced attorneys will give you a range of months to years.

What is your fee? Find a competent firm willing to handle your personal injury case on a “contingent fee” basis and who will pay the costs in the case until you make a recovery. Find one that will agree, in writing, to charge you a fee and costs only if you make a recovery.

Ask anything else you think will help you feel the attorney is competent and can help you with your case. Check out the firm’s website and see if they and the attorney seem to have the experience they claim.

Then…make your best judgment; but never stop asking questions.

There is little oversight of the private school industry in Florida. Once they are opened and operating, they are effectively an island unto themselves.

They do not have to be subjected to testing or evaluation. Private schools are not licensed, approved or regulated by the Florida Department of Education.

When a private school closes, what happens to their records, particularly graduation records? Sometimes no one ever knows and they simply vanish. This can be a real problem for job seekers needing to prove their high school diploma and transcripts.

As reported in the Palm Beach Post, Jeffrey Noble, has found out the hard way that the lack of regulation can have very personal repercussions.

Mr. Noble graduated from The Edison Russell School, a private school in Palm Beach Gardens. The school went out of business in 2005. What happened to all the records of all those graduating from The Edison Russell School? Good question. The records have apparently disappeared into thin air.

What happens to those young people who graduate from an unregulated private school that closes without providing its records voluntarily to the state? They will likely have to apply for and obtain their General Education Development Diploma (GED).

Parents of children attending private schools: keep diplomas and obtain a transcript of your child from the school. Young adults attending and graduating from private schools – same advice.

Imagine 12 years after graduation, your employer tells you they can find no evidence of you graduation because you attended a private school that went out of business.

None of us live in a vacuum. We all yearn for positive interaction with other people. During our formidable years we need acceptance by our peers perhaps more than at any time.

Bullying is one of those things that crosses all ethnic, age and gender lines. Statistics vary, but the incidence of male versus female bullying is not all that starkly different. Although boys seem to bully more than girls, girls appear to be catching up. What may be the most startling, though,  is that 60% of girls who were bullied reported that it was a male who was bullying.

Social networking is a phenomenon that did not exist when I went to school. So, if you were bullied, it took a fairly long time before everyone new. Now, the victim of “cyber-bullying” can be immediately further tortured in real time, by untold numbers of their peers.

Imagine receiving text messages, Facebook posts, and tweets a dozen, two dozen,, three dozen a day that bully you in one or another. “You are worthless”; “no one likes you”; “get out of our school”; “you are a complete waste” and many, much worse. Then add to it that rather than a handful of people seeing those statements, it is hundreds or thousands that see them. People you thought to be your friends can no longer afford to be your friend if they are to avoid the cross hairs of those doing the bullying.

When I went to school, if you played team sports, the possibility of getting a “pink belly” by team members was a virtual rite of passage. Likewise, some aggressive act involving the topical pain medication “Heat” was bound to happen.

If you were different, you were probably going to be picked on, pushed around on the playground or ostracized.

Did any of the bullying, either giving or receiving, build character; make me a better person; make the bully a better person; or help to develop skills that would allow us to get along in adulthood?

No, no, no and NO. There was nothing valuable in the experience, nothing enjoyable and certainly nothing to learn from the experience. But teachers, parents and others told us it would.

Today’s bullying, though, has taken on a whole new dimension. No longer do kids have to worry about getting shoved in the locker. They have to worry about being shoved in the locker and a photo of the event being posted on various social media sites for millions to see. Kids have to face the many tweets, posts and texts about how lame they are and how stupid they looked.

How big is the problem of bullying in today’s schools? What can students, parents, schools and all of us do to try and limit bullying? What are the causes of bullying in schools – how is a bully formed?

Here is what one school, Cypress Ranch High School, did to get the word out about how its students felt about bullies and it is well worth the watch:

Who first uttered the words “tort reform” in the context of medical malpractice lawsuits?

It had to have been an ingenious insurance executive who has long since retired after being richly rewarded by the insurance industry.

Why? Because when it comes to “tort reform” there is a single winner: the insurance industry. Doctors and hospitals lose…or at least they win nothing. Consumers lose enormously. Taxpayers lose and victims and medical negligence are the really big losers.

An article recently published in the medical journal, Chest (Chest 2013; 143 (1): 222 – 227), the authors discussed the truth about medical malpractice in “Five Myths of Medical Malpractice”. They borrow a quote from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that aptly characterizes how the medical malpractice crisis has been spun by the insurance industry and tort reform groups:

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Because not everyone can access the article without paying for it, let me try and summarize the important highlights of the authors’ findings.

Myth: Malpractice Crises are Caused by filing More Malpractice Litigation and “Runaway Jury Verdicts.

Completely untrue. Statistics drawn from the National Practitioner Databank demonstrate that medical negligence claims against physicians have been steadily dropping since 1992 and the numbers today are roughly one-half what they were in 1992.

Payout per physician was roughly stable from 1992 to 2001 but dropped in 2003 and is now 46% below the 1992 level.

The “runaway” jury verdicts that attract popular attention are not at all representative and often are largely reduced by judicial oversight or through other means. More broadly, the overwhelming majority (95%) of cases is resolved, and the overwhelming majority of payouts are made because of voluntary settlement.

Myth: Frivolous Medical Malpractice Cases are Rampant in the Tort System.

Wrong. Like any other notable occurrence, the press moves public focus on any substantial jury verdict; usually without regard for whether the amount was supported by the evidence. It is the amount that the press seeks to highlight. There are no statistics, anywhere, in any state, that support the notion of any numbers of frivolous malpractice claims that would be considered anything other than “wholly insignificant”.

A much larger problem exists and especially in states that have implemented tort reform:

“A far larger problem, however, is that an enormous fraction of patients who are harmed by medical negligence either make no effort to recover damages or cannot find lawyers willing to take their cases . These patients, who are entitled to compensation, never sue.”

Because plaintiffs can not afford to pay attorneys by the hour, law firms agree to take a percentage if a recovery is made. Most law firms also carry the costs of the litigation for years, at no interest. So, a lawyer reviewing a potential malpractice case carefully weighs whether the case is valid; what the damages might be; and what the cost of trying the case may be. Often, litigation may take 4 or 5 years; thousands of hours of time; and hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs; before the law firm finds out whether they get paid anything for their time and expense. This has always been the best hedge against frivolous lawsuits in medical negligence cases.

If we examine Texas where some draconian tort reform was passed in 2003, the statistics demonstrate a significant reduction in the number of medical negligence claims and the average dollar payouts (whether settled or through jury verdict) in both the “pre-tort reform” and “post tort reform” periods.

The total numbers of claims before tort reform were 7,650, which dropped to 5,300 after tort reform. Average mean payouts for all large malpractice claims went from $609,000 in the pre-tort reform period to $419,000 in the post reform period.

So, tort reform worked? It probably worked, but not in the way most people believe. When tort reform passes in a state, it makes it that much more difficult for victims of medical negligence to find attorneys willing to undertake representation in their cases. This results in patients injured by medical negligence who then go to private insurers, Medicaid and Medicare to pay for the treatment they will need because of the malpractice.

Who ultimately pays for tort reform? We do – every single person who pays health insurance premiums or taxes.

Myth: Doctors are One Malpractice Verdict Away From Bankruptcy.

First, only about 2% of all medical malpractice claims proceed to a jury verdict and in those cases medical providers win around 75% of the time.

Second, nearly every jury verdict over a physician’s policy limits was settled for their policy limits or their insurance company paid the excess the verdict because the insurance company was dealing in bad faith.

Finally, for at least a decade doctors have been taught ways to shelter their assets from any exposure to malpractice verdicts and by now most all practice this defensive asset hiding.

Myth: When Tort Reform is Passed, Physicians Move to those States in Large Numbers.

Completely false and unsupported by any statistics. The only regions that show any significant increase in physician population after passage of tort reform measures are rural areas.

Myth: Tort Reform Laws Reduce Healthcare Costs of Physicians Practicing “Defensive Medicine”.

We would need to determine whether “defensive medicine” is good medicine or patient protecting procedures; rather than defensive medicine for the sole purpose of avoiding malpractice claims. And, if “defensive medicine” is testing that is completely unnecessary and only to avoid malpractice claims is that not fraud being practiced by physicians?

Who really pays for the cost of tort reform? Injured victims of malpractice, consumers and tax payers.

Who wins? Insurance companies and corporate healthcare.

“Be extra careful driving late at night.  You are likely going to be sharing the road with drunk drivers.” 

If your parents were like mine when I started driving in South Florida, you likely heard this familiar warning many times.  Unfortunately, they were sometimes right.  If my two children were teenagers learning how to drive now, I would offer the same admonishment.  I would also add the following:

“Be careful driving anytime and anywhere.  You are definitely going to be sharing the road with drivers who are distracted and not paying attention because they are using their cell phones.” 

The truth is that drivers who are distracted by cell phone use can be just as deadly as an impaired driver.  The scary truth?  There are a lot more folks out on the roads that are distracted by cell phones than impaired drivers.

A recent article in the Palm Beach Post highlighted an alarming trend.  For the first time in five years, there was an increase in the number of traffic fatalities per year in Palm Beach County.  In Palm Beach County alone, there were 137 traffic fatalities in 2012 compared with 113 in 2011.  The likely suspect?  Mobile devices according to law enforcement officials and state legislators.  The problem of distracted drivers due to cell phone use is not unique to our county. This is a national trend.  More and more people each year are dying as a result of someone texting, emailing, or talking on the cell phone.

If we are going to reverse these troubling trends, we will need to do two things.  First, we need to increase awareness about the deadly consequences of texting while driving.  Get the message out.  Reinforce the message with your family, friends, and people with whom you travel.  Encourage your employer to institute a companywide policy banning the use of cell phones without a handsfree device.  There is no phone call, text, or email that is so important that it would justify putting your life, the lives of your passengers, and the lives of the rest of the motoring public at risk.

Second, we need to demand that our elected officials in Tallahassee finally pass a law banning texting while driving.  Since 2002, there have been dozens of unsuccessful attempts in the Florida legislature to pass legislation to make it illegal to text while driving.  It’s high time for our representatives in the House and the Senate to get on the same page and finally pass this lifesaving legislation.

Attorney Cal Warriner was interviewed by the Palm Beach Post as set forth in an article published in Sunday’s paper. Mr. Warriner raised as number of valid points, but two dealt with short cuts to FDA approval and a national joint registry:

Would any patients have been harmed by the Stryker Rejuvenate and the ABG II hip implants if short cuts to approval through the Food & drug Administration were prohibited?

Would less patients have been harmed by the Stryker Rejuvenate and the ABG II hip implants if the United States had an effective joint replacement registry in place similar to the one in Australia?

The FDA permits orthopedic device manufacturers to short cut the approval process if a manufacturer can demonstrate that a product for which they seek approval is “equivalent to a device” already approved by the FDA. If the manufacturer can demonstrate the substantial equivalence of their device, they may bypass the lengthy and expensive clinical trial and scientific scrutiny that new devices are put through.

But, what if the “new device” differs from the already approved device in ways that might create problems? The FDA is largely funded by the same device and drug manufacturers they regulate and they have little funding or staff to conduct independent device evaluation. If the manufacturer represents “substantial equivalence”, the device is likely to get approved if it appears to be a similar device.

The “short cut” process is great for device manufacturers, but reasonable suspicion exists as to its benefit for consumers.

The Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Registry has proved successful in repeated instances. Long before the FDA has recalled problem medical devices in the United States, Australia and the European Union (who also maintains a device database) have alerted to problems in devices such as Stryker’s Rejuvenate, Depuy and other joint replacement devices.

Does the United States maintain a device database? Yes. It has only a year ago begun to accumulate data; so, in fairness, it will be several years before we really can gauge its success. There does seem to be some differences between the AJRR (American Joint Replacement Registry) and the Australian registry.

The United States Registry includes, as contributors, manufacturers including:

• Aesculap Implant Systems, Inc.
• DePuy Orthopedics, Inc.
• Exactech, Inc.
• Stryker
• Zimmer, Inc.
• Biomet, Inc.
• Consensus Orthopedics
• DJO Surgical
• Smith & Nephew plc
• Wright Medical Technology, Inc.

So, of the 17 listed financial contributors to the American registry, 10 of them are some of the largest manufacturers of medical devices in the world. In contrast, the Australian registry is funded by the departments in the Australian government charged with regulating the medical device industry.

In all fairness, the FDA’s “short cut” to medical device approval seems like a process to benefit manufacturers more than consumers. But, an oversight organization, such as the American registry funded largely by the medical device manufacturers seems like a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house!

Medical negligence happens. That is a fact.

Other professional negligence happens, too.

One of the differences that distinguish medical professionals from other professionals who are negligent is tort reform laws passed by states intending to protect and insulate medical professionals from their negligence. Other professionals are apparently “on their own”.

Texas and Florida are two of the states that have passed some really draconian laws that punish patients who suffer injury as the result of a doctor’s negligence. The legislatures use a variety of arguments to pass these laws: doctors are fleeing the state, medical malpractice premiums are too high, and there are too many frivolous lawsuits.

We have written about this before and plenty of evidence documents:

• Doctors seldom “flee” a state because of malpractice lawsuits and doctors seldom come to a state because they have passed tort reform.
• Insurance company executives have testified under oath that lawsuits have little influence over malpractice premiums. Several told the Florida legislature that passage of certain tort reform laws would NOT lower premiums. Then Florida legislators passed the laws anyway.
• There is almost NO frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits filed. The cost of prosecuting a medical malpractice case is so substantial; attorneys cannot afford to pursue cases that are not reasonably clear negligence.

Let’s look at an actual case, involving a lady in Texas by the name of Connie Spears. She was taken to the hospital emergency room with complaints of severe leg pain and she told physicians about her history of blood clots. The emergency room ignored her history of blood clots and sent her home with an insignificant diagnosis. Days went by with Ms. Spear continuing to suffer pain in her legs, the legs became swollen, and she developed delusional symptoms. She was taken to another hospital where she was diagnosed with severe blood clotting causing major vessels in her legs to completely occlude.  Physicians ultimately amputated both of her legs because of tissue death from lack of blood circulation.

Texas, as Florida, has a law that establishes that a victim of negligence in an emergency room must prove the negligence was “willful and wanton”; in other words, intentional. In Ms. Spears case she would be required to prove that the emergency room doctors intended she have clots develop so severely that she would lose her legs.

Sound stupid? Sound completely ridiculous? Yes, it does; but that is exactly what the Florida legislature has done, too. It was not enough to financially protect doctors and hospitals, legislators had to go the extra mile in discouraging lawsuits against emergency room doctors.

Add to the mix that the legislatures also require, in every medical negligence case, that the plaintiff spend thousands of dollars to hire an expert to testify negligence occurred and caused the plaintiff injury.

The legislatures have also limited non-economic damages to only $250,000 against physicians. In Ms. Spear’s case, she can collect for her lost wages and future medical care, but the legislature has pre-determined that the value of losing both her legs is only $250,000.

In Ms. Spear’s case, because attorneys were worried about being required to prove the emergency room physicians “intended” to cause Ms. Spears to lose her legs, she had incredible difficulty finding an attorney to take her case. Ultimately her case was dismissed because of problems with the expert witness being unable to say the ER doctors intended the loss of Ms. Spears legs.

The lawyer for the hospital was quoted as saying:

Tina York, a lawyer for Christus Santa Rosa, said it was unusual for a case to be dismissed because of problems with an expert-witness report. The rules are in the statute, she said, to weed out plaintiffs who “can’t legally support their claim” from the beginning. (Christus Health is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

Poppy-cock. The laws were passed to make it so expensive and so difficult to bring a medical negligence case that no attorneys would pursue even very obvious cases of egregious malpractice, as in Ms. Spears case.

Tort reform’s lawyer in Texas, Mike Hull claims, “Our purpose had never been to have a procedural hurdle, it had been to have the plaintiffs really get the case reviewed.” That is not a fair statement of tort reformers’ “purpose”. These laws create requirements that make it financially impossible to bring negligence cases and judicially impossible to sustain lawsuits.

One must wonder how these tort reform advocates, like Mr. Hull, would feel if Ms. Spears was his mother.

“Antibacterial” – there is just something about the word that inspires a certain scientific clean.

So, it is flu season break out the antibacterial soaps, gels and lotions – Right?

Wrong.

First, a majority of illnesses are caused by viruses and antibacterial substances have no effect on viruses. The flu, for example, is caused by a virus or viruses; using an antibacterial soap or gel will do nothing about the spread of those viruses.

Using antibacterial soap is more about your brain than your skin. Using something labeled as “antibacterial” tells your brain that you are doing something to fight and to protect yourself.

What can you do that really does have an effect? Good old fashioned hand washing with regular soap. The lathering action of the soap combined with the scrubbing of your hands back and forth is what helps to lift bacteria and viruses off your body and allow water to wash them away.

How can you effectively wash your hands? Experts recommend:

Proper hand washing technique makes all the difference in the world when it comes to ridding your hands of germs. Follow this procedure:

1. Wet your hands with running water.
2. Apply soap and create an ample lather.
3. Rub your hands thoroughly for a minimum of 20 seconds (about the time it takes to sing the Happy    Birthday song twice).
4. Dry well with an air dryer or clean, disposable towel. (Tip: If a towel is accessible, also use it to turn off the faucet.)

No water? Look for an alcohol based sanitizer with about 60% alcohol content. Now you know why cowboys were so big on whiskey!

What else can you do? Try some of these things:

1. When washing hands, rub them vigorously on front and back for at least 20 seconds.
2. Rinse hands thoroughly after washing and dry completely.
3. Frequently wipe down surfaces around home and other environments. Try this mixture instead of antibacterial cleaners.
4. Do not go to work, shopping or visit friends while you are sick. Most offices are simply a brewing pot for disease when employees come to work sick.

What else?

Antibacterial soaps and other liquids do more harm to the environment than they do good. Nearly all antibacterial soaps and liquids contain triclosan and triclocarban; and both are environmentally unfriendly.

Finally, a growing number of experts believe that we are slowly building up to the existence of “super bugs” and the fear is we will have nothing that will be strong enough to combat them.

Stryker is finally acknowledging that their Rejuvenate and ABG II modular hip product line can cause serious problems in patients – even if they aren’t yet feeling symptoms of metal poisoning or tissue destruction.

Since the Rejuvenate product recall on July 4th, Stryker has been telling patients that if you aren’t feeling any symptoms, you should not return to your orthopedic specialist unless it’s part of your individual treatment plan.

Since June, we have been warning patients of heavy metal toxicity, tissue necrosis, and irreversible skeletal damage.

Now, (6) months after our warnings and (5) months after the Stryker recall, Stryker has a different message: “It is important that you follow-up with your surgeon, even if you are not experiencing symptoms such as pain and/or swelling at or around your hip” and even recommending that if you are unsure if you have the Rejuvenate or ABG II, to find out immediately.

Stryker’s about-face in this situation is predictable given the obvious problems with Rejuvenate and ABGII hip systems. It is inexcusable, however, for Stryker to tell patients that failure rates are so low that they need not be concerned, when “heavy metal toxicity, tissue necrosis, and irreversible skeletal damage” was medically predictable at the time of the recall.

Why did Stryker delay these recommendations for so long; when we at Searcy Denney have been asking Stryker since their voluntary recall this summer to acknowledge that their device is causing serious harm to patients? For now, we are left to guess, until we discover in the process of litigating lawsuits on behalf of victims.

According to Reuters, Stryker has now employed a company called Broadspire to administrate the claims process for future incurred medical expenses. Although it is not clear what expenses Stryker may cover, we hope they intend to compensate for at least replacement of faulty hips to prevent continued injury to patients.

But, as we have warned before, you should always speak with a lawyer before negotiating or dealing with a third-party claims administrator like Broadspire. Whether you hire a lawyer or not is a different issue, but at least speak with one.

Do not be misled. These companies often portray themselves as wanting to help patients and they really may want to help patients; but at the end of the day, they work for, their loyalty is to Stryker and not the patient. If they can secure a full release for their employer by paying pennies on the dollar of a victim’s actual losses, they will because that is their job.