Western Region PLUS Days 2003 Tackles Pressing Issues

Issues ranging from A&E/construction to issues in the medical malpractice arena highlighted two days of the Western Region PLUS Days 2003 Conference in San Francisco Sept. 4-5. While the news was encouraging on some fronts, other areas of the industry are apparently in for tougher times before things improve.

With several hundred in attendance, guest speakers tackled current trends in the construction industry, the future of private arbitration, how business torts are finding their way into professional liability claims, and removing emergency medicine from the crisis list.

At the A&E/Construction session, Lisa Dyson, a regional claim manager for DPIC, noted that, “The trends we’re seeing in mold emanated from the Ballard Case. We’re seeing mold claims increase in nursing and assisted living facilities, hotels and multi-unit residential projects. On the positive side, we’re not seeing a huge amount of severe cases.”

David Ericksen, a member of the law firm of Severson & Werson, pointed out that most design firms are facing increasingly hard times. “These are very hard times right now for clients. There is reduced work flow and increased competition in all sectors, more onerous contract requirements, increased client disregard of contracts, slower payment of fees, increased litigation, and new claim exposures.”

Leslie Pancoast of California-based Professional Practice Insurance Brokers remarked that as it relates to condos, “We’re seeing claims happen 9 to 10 years down the road. You will see homeowners associations come together and bring claims against a design team.”

Later in the day, emergency medicine and med-mal claims were discussed as a number of states are in or approaching crisis levels in med-mal.

According to Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, much of the nation points to California and the cap it placed on non-economic damages as the way to go. California placed a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in 1975. Non-economic damages are defined as compensation for pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, and other non-pecuniary injury.

According to a 2002 U. S. Department of Health and Human services Report, Confronting the New Health Care Crisis, med-mal premiums in California have grown much more slowly than in the rest of the country. California rates reportedly rose 167 percent since it enacted the cap, while rates in the rest of the country rose 505 percent.

“Trial lawyers lost once, but they’ve learned how to not lose again,” Matheis commented. “The current nationwide crisis we’re seeing in med-mal rates has seen an incredible jump in awards that is driving the crisis. Trial lawyers have gone where there are no tort limits.”

Matheis pointed out that six states—California, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, Louisiana, and Wisconsin—have not faced a crisis in med-mal as a result of having controls in place.

“They’ve got hard caps, and significant controls on what juries can do,” Matheis said. Matheis noted that his state of Nevada is one of 18 states that is currently facing a med-mal crisis, with 26 others nearing crisis status.

Topics California