Bailey & Greer PLLC

Should a jury or the government rule on your Memphis Medical Malpractice Case?

"Malpractice suits face new barriers" in The Tennessean discusses the current state of medical malpractice claims and the problems surrounding the proposed legislation changes. Sadler was asked to comment.

Sadler Bailey, a plaintiff's lawyer with Bailey & Greer in Memphis, said that because the proposed legislation places no limit on economic damages, people with good incomes stand to be better compensated than those with low incomes. Economic damages are often based on lost pay.

"The people who are going to be hurt the most by the passage of this bill are going to be the weakest members of society - the very young, who don't have earnings, and the very old, who are in the twilight of their life and are not going to make money and thus don't have any earnings either," Bailey said.

He gave the example of an award that a jury made last month to a family whose child choked to death at a Jackson, Tenn., day-care center. The family was awarded $400,000 for economic damages and $1.1 million for pain and suffering.

"If this bill had been in effect at that time, then that verdict would have been reduced from $1.1 million to $750,000," Bailey said. "It's a bad thing. Juries know how to evaluate cases better than the government does."