Medical malpractice insurance is a cost of doing business in the human medical profession. But in the past 30 years, some
startling developments have begun to affect the delivery of even basic care to millions of Americans seriously. The insurance
companies complain that the large jury settlements make the business climate in many states untenable. They clamor for statutory
caps on pain and suffering.
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Attorneys threaten that capping settlements denies basic compensatory rights for those wronged by doctors. As they raise fees
or accept lower incomes to keep up with ever increasing malpractice insurance premiums, doctors complain that the cost of
doing business has driven them from practice. And patients are caught in the middle — frustrated by the rising cost of care
and fearful of the inability to sue in the event of a tragedy.
In 1993, there was one law school teaching animal law, and as of the summer of 2004, there are 38 doing so with two, 700-plus
page volumes of animal law available since 2000. There is a National Center for Animal Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in
Portland, Ore., http://www.lclark.edu/gov/ncal. There is a 25-year old U.S. organization called Animal Legal Defense Fund with 47 student chapters at U.S. law schools and
13 new chapters being formed in 2004, http://www.aldf.org/students, as well as an Animal Legal and Historical Web Center at Michigan State University College of Law. There is even an International
Institute for Animal law, http://www.animallaw.com/.
These are only a few of the pre-eminent sources of information for the animal law movement, all of which intend to change
the status of pets under traditional property law principles. One of the topics at the head of the list of changes being pursued
by today's budding legal scholars pertains directly to the limited liability available to veterinarians and other animal care
givers relative to expense of the healthcare received by today's beloved pets. This series reviews the impact of rising liability and concurrent increases in the cost of professional liability insurance
in the human healthcare arena, tactics being taken in that field to control liability costs, and which of the methods that
have been touted or are being tried appear to be effective.
The South Carolina example In South Carolina, human patient access to care is threatened by the current state of the medical liability system. Doctors
are forced into tough choices about limiting services or leaving practice altogether because of skyrocketing medical liability
premiums.
On average, doctors in South Carolina saw a 24-percent increase in Joint Underwriting Association and Patient Compensation
Fund premiums in 2003 alone. Since 1995, the increase has been a staggering 66.5 percent. The most significant factors in
rate increases throughout those eight years have been the rise in the size of awards and the dramatic increase in the number
of claims filed.
South Carolina is not alone. The American Medical Association (AVMA) lists 12 states in medical malpractice liability insurance
crisis: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West
Virginia.
Currently, veterinarians pay a mere fraction of the price physicians do for professional liability insurance. Recently, however,
a number of cases have emerged that threaten to change this.
Changing veterinary laws Today, in most states, owners of animals can seek, but will not be granted, pain and suffering damages in most veterinary
malpractice suits. Animals are viewed as property by law, and as such, owners are due only the fair market value of an animal
at the time of its death and/or lost earnings, lost profits, lost use of the animal (as stud or dam). In the case of injuries
caused by negligence, expenses incurred attempting to prevent the death or permanent disability of animals are allowed including
veterinary fees up to the market value of the animal. These costs may not (and usually don't) even cover the financial costs
associated with righting the wrong.
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