Slashdot Mirror
IBM Cleared in San Jose Cancer Liability Suit
kbeech writes "A jury In San Jose returned a unanimous verdict in favor of IBM in a case where plaintiffs claimed the company kept medical information on their condition from them." Slashdot hasn't covered this well, but evidence in the lawsuit has suggested that employees were heavily exposed to chemicals and that IBM was aware that their employees got cancer at higher rates than the general population.
... if they truly were exposed with the company knowing about it, that they were denied some compensation for that. It seems the judge did them no favours by allowing them to take their case outside the California employees system, because the burden of proof is much higher in a "normal" court (as well as the damages...)
I wonder, if they'd stayed put, would they have won something rather than nothing... I always think it's easy to make a snap judgement based on your feelings for the parties involved though - if they were found against, you have to assume that they couldn't prove it... Harsh, though.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I am personally sick and tired of sleazy trial lawyers like John Edwards taking enormous sums of money for ridiculous lawsuits. Here in Pennsylvania doctors are flreeing to other states in droves because of what the trial lawyers have done with medical malpractice. And who is the number one sleaseballs? Why the son of Senator Arlen Spector! Gov Rendall is so deep in the pockets of these lawyers it is sickening. They and their ilk have brought a crisis in medicine in Pennsylvania. Just another reason to vote for Bush and the Reps--Kerry/Edwards are beholden to the interests of the trial lawyers.
Willy wonka cleared of liability/wrong doing in the Gloop, Beauregarde, and Teevee vs IBM suit.
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
This situation is a hard one for AnCaps like myself to resolve.
While it seems like IBM may have had some knowledge of statistsically higher death rates among these workers, there is also the belief that I hold that every worker are responsible to find out what risks a certain job holds.
Employers and employees really are on equal ground more than the general media wants you to believe. Both parties gain a profit from the jobs performed. If an employee wants to perform a job at a certain income, why is it the employer's role to let them know of any risks beforehand, unless the employee explicitly requests a risk assessment?
Cancer is such an odd condition. I honestly believe cancer isn't directly caused by one simple situation. So many variables can go into it. Smoking may cause cancer, but I believe smoking doesn't -- it is only a risk factor. Did these employees all eat regularly at a certain facility? Did they all live near factories that may have also contributed to the enhanced risk?
I read all the articles, and I'm fairly sure I agree with the jury that IBM should not be held liable. On the other hand, if employees asked in advance about the risks involved, and IBM blatantly lied, then they should be held guilty.
One thing is clear: the lesson learned is that you should always ask your employer in advance of any health risks involved in future work, and get their reply in writing.
I was listening to a radio piece on NPR about this yesterday. Apparently one of IBMs' arguments was that they adhered to OSHA guidelines -- none of the compounds workers were exposed to were thought to be as toxic as they were, so the acceptable levels of exposure are really much lower then what was thought at the time.
"but evidence in the lawsuit has suggested that employees were heavily exposed to chemicals and that IBM was aware that their employees got cancer at higher rates than the general population."
The plaintiff's evidence was suggestive. The defendent's (IBM's) evidence was convincing.
Perhaps Slashdot was right to not cover this case very well.
I used to be a diehard Republican with pro-business ideas, but when decisions like this are handed down, I have to question whether a laissez faire policy is really the best thing for companies as well as employees.
It seems obvious that if IBM knew that these chemicals were causing higher cancer rates among its employees that it ought to be found complicit in their illnesses and be required to pay for their treatment and rehabilitation as well as compensatory damages. Unfortunately, the prosecution was not able to prove to the jury that this was the case.
However, in such a case the victims are simply out of luck. Should they, through no fault of their own be destined to spend many thousands of their own dollars for cancer treatment when they are in the least capable position of paying of any of the parties involved? IBM failed to provide, through simple negligence, a safe working environment and now people are suffering as a result.
I don't think that ignorance of the problem can be a usable excuse in cases such as this. It is IBM who through their ignorance caused this damage. I feel that it is their responsibility to pay.
With apologies to the Vapors, I think I'm turning Democratic.
I have been pwned because my
I saw a story about this on 60 minutes. Among other things, they talked about how dangerous chemicals, that had been purchased in massive barrels with big warning signs on them were distributed to workers in smaller usable containers with the warning signs removed. How workers used to be exposed to chemicals with their bare hands, and they'd work without their gloves on because the chemicals would eat right through their gloves if they left them on. Interesting episode ... After seeing that, this verdict is somewhat of a surprise.
Goody... now their lawyers can really concentrate on that peskey SCO thing...
(yes, I realize that IBM has a bout a gazillion lawyers, and that the ones involved in a cancer lawsuit are not the ones who'd best handle an ip lawsuit... but still....)
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
If this is a biased article... It seems that they do a wonderful job at telling one side of the story yet there must have been evidence clearing IBM of responsibility for the matter.
Those workers were under incredibly harsh conditions, but they never seemed to prove that IBM's chemicals actually did cause the diseases... Just a thought
The original generic sig.
Sorry, couldn't restrain myself.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
The main folks in the suit are 60+ years old....
They claim they "frequently had hard drive coating chemicals soak through her bunny suit and stain her skin and was forced to hold her breath to avoid inhaling strong odors emitted by chemicals she used daily"
Umm, I don't know about you, but if I was effectively swimming in chemicals, I do believe I might have a few stronger words to my company than "oh, I'm ok, let's go back to swimming in chemicals". Especially considering all the news 30+ years ago about the effects of chemicals on people and the environment in general (DDT, Agent Orange, that morning sickness drug thiamolide(sp?)).
That's sort of like oil field workers or railroad workers suing because they lost a finger, hand, or limb because the company "didn't tell them" that the work was dangerous.
Evidently the could not prove the company was malicious in its actions towards them, which to me is the only criteria in this case that could have convinced me that IBM should have lost. Let's hear it for a just verdict, for once, even if it seems the "little folks" got the short end of the stick (they didn't, they just didn't get to soak the company imho).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
IBM Spokesperson Joseph Camel agrees.
Trolling is a art,
NPR's liberal "bias" still spits out more facts than, say, the "centrist" (hahahahaha!) Fox News. Show me a conservative-biased news source that still manages to report facts over rhetoric.
Everything causes cancer nowadays
*sigh*
Hey, I LIKE my skull being opened with a hole saw... you insensitive clod.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
Despite sounding like an asshole, parent poster is right. Why should IBM outsource quality IT jobs while local workers get the cancer?
It's all bullshit to me.
If I, as a company, in good faith comply with all known legal requirements, and take as many steps as possible for worker safety, should I be held liable years later when something turns out to have been bad for my workers?
Take micro waves. They weren't known to cause problems, and initially micro wave ovens showed up everywhere in convenience stores. Then, low and behold, pace makers were found to be affected. Now, before that finding, should anyone injured by this mechanism be able to sue and hold liable whomever was involved, no matter how tenuously, for an unknown side-effect? I say no. This case's verdict confirms this concept, and to me is a just verdict.
A counter example is the tabacco industry, which withheld information on the extent of the damaging properties of its products from the general populace while continuing to strongly market its products. This is malicious negligence (IANAL FYI) and to my sense of justice should carry a penalty. And look, they were penalized, and this is another example of justice being served.
Lastly, I don't think these verdicts are necessarily pro-business, or anti-business, but merely necessary verdicts to enable people and companies to do business in this country. If every injured party was able to reap big verdicts over every little "injustice" or injury, then our business climate would be so terrible that no company would stay in the US for fear of being sued out of existance for something they could not have foreseen.
Take asbestos for instance, there was a product that no one knew would cause the problems it did later. In my opinion, I think the verdicts have been too far reaching, even hitting companies that bought bankrupt companies for their equipment (wish I still had a link to that story, was on cnn about 4 or 5 months ago). That's too far imo.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
needs a 'loser pays' system - at least so some proportion. Society has become so litigious that if IBM had lost here, everyone and their mother whom had ever worked in semiconductors would sue IBM, Intel, AMD, VIA, etc. I hate to think that this prospect was a factor in the decision, or in any case of its kind. Sadly, firms will often settle rather than take even a very small risk at trial for fear that a loss would prompt a flood of very expensive suits.
sig
Now if there are a bunch of 20-30 year-old workers coming down with cancer, that might be pretty fishy.
I used to work at IBM Essex VT facility in the Fab doing robotic maintenance. The truth of the matter is that we were exposed to all kinds of horrible chemicals. For instance I one started coughing up blood because a machine had exploded (literally) and there was a cloud of pure HLC in the core. Could I have sued IBM because of this. absolutely NOT!!!!
The thing that gets them off the hook is that their procedure for dealing with any chemicals is all OSHA approved and the equipment to comply is available. The problem is that it is not possible to do your job when in all the gear. If I am supposed to don a SCBA unit, chemical gloves and chemical suit ever time we detected a small TCS leak in a machine I would never get my job done. Also it is a real pain the ass to try and fix small precision robotics while wearing all that shit.
How can you sue a company because you refuse to comply with safety procedures. You can't. The catch 22 is IBM knows you won't follow procedure and doesn't expect you to. They expect you to get the job done fast and right. If you can't do that because you follow procedure to a T you WILL be fired. (at least in IBM Essex)
That's my rant. IBM sucks. They are both the best employer (in terms of pay and benefits) and the worst employer (in terms of actually caring about their employees) I have ever worked for.
AC AKA Low Pressure ASM EPI tech.
The problem these days seems to be a toxic overload of carcinogens in our environment. There are so many carcinogens, pollutants, and plain toxic material in our air, food and water, it's going to be increasingly difficult to prove the source of cancer in anyone......Even a dog knows not to piss in it's bed.
OSHA hasn't been a properly functioning governmental organization for YEARS, if not decades.
Everyone should be aware that we take more than a paycheck [lyrics] home from work.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
http://www.pressconnects.com/special/endicottspill /
Does anyone know why these record were kept out of the proceedings?
Love the editorial in the lead to this discussion.
Let's be clear: evidence was presented by both sides, and a jury of peers from Silicon Valley, found that IBM was not liable.
As someone who has followed this case closely, I have to agree with the decision rendered by the jury.
Of course, if you want to put on your tin-foil hat, you will find all kinds of conspiracies in this baby.
Worker's compensation schemes guarantee a payout that slides on a scale: three weeks for losing a finger, etc. In return, the employer is strictly liable for worker's injuries on the job. It doesn't matter whether the injury was the employer's fault, he has to pay for it. However, these compensations seem normatively inadequate when it comes to long-term health illnesses such as work-related cancers and the like.
Workers can get out of the comp system and into tort law for intentional or reckless actions by the employer. If the boss shoots an employee, for example, the death is not to be paid for by the worker's comp system. They seem to be arguing recklessness here. (The article, which I read, by the way, does not say.) This means that management knew of the risk of great bodily harm to the employees and ignored the risk.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
This decision wasn't "handed down". The jury heard the case. They found that IBM didn't do anything wrong.
Specifically, what do you have against the jury that you'd assume they made the wrong decision?
Where do you think the highly toxic capacitors in your electronics are fabricated? China.
Where do you think the steel and aluminum are smelted, rolled, and processed? India.
Where does the motherboard come from? Taiwan.
They already do that. Apparently this type of manufacturing can't be exported because they don't have skilled enough workers there or something (or the plant was already here... not cost effective)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
In the Navy I was asked to do a bunch of painting in an enclosed compartment. I went to the safety office to get an appropriate resperator. They said - "We don't have the right equipment to fit you for one. So you can't have one." I said, "So since we can't be sure the fit will be perfect I have to do the work with no protection at all?" The answer- "Yes." Brilliant.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Go, boys, go
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
You're two days nearer death.
But you go.
Well a process man am I and I'm telling you no lies.
I work and breath among the fumes that tread across the sky.
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air.
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair.
And it's go boys go.
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
you're two days nearer death.
But you go.
Well I've worked among the spinners and I breathed the oily smoke.
I shoveled up the gypsum and that nyon makes you choke.
I've knee deep in cyanide got sick with a caustic burn.
Been working rough I've seen enough to make your stomach turn.
And it's go boys go.
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
you're two days nearer death.
But you go.
There's overtime and bonus opportunity galore.
The young men like their money and they all come back for more.
But soon you're knock'n on and you look older than you should.
For every bob made on the job is paid with flesh and blood.
And it's go boys go.
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
you're two days nearer death.
But you go.
Well a process man am I and I'm telling you no lies.
I work and breath among the fumes that tread across the sky.
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air.
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair.
And it's go boys go.
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
you're two days nearer death.
But you go.
And it's go boys go.
They'll time your every breath.
And every day you're in this place,
you're two days nearer death.
But you go.
-- Great Big Sea
In some cases, the procedures, compounds used, etc. may be either trade secrets or confidential knowledge. Thus prospective employees would only know that they don't know what risks are included in the job, while the employer (whose obviously knows their own trade secrets) would know those risks.
Some fields (process chemistry, for example) would imply certain risks but because the company doesn't know what chemicals will be used in a process or has that knowledge under NDA or trade secret protection, you could not know and evaluate many of the specific risks associated with a job before you took it. In addition, employees might not know the risk of a job because the risk from a chemical is unknown (either willfully or innocently). In most cases now, people take precautions as if something were assumed toxic, but in earlier times, for example, workers were exposed to benzene (solvent) and p,p'-benzidine (rubber agent?) only later to find out that the compounds were carcinogens (leukemia and bladder cancer, resp.)
In a free market, no one forces anyone to work any job in any environment against their will. If you feel the job is unsafe, don't work at that rate in that environment.
Starvation or exposure to the elements (homelessness) is generally a much more immediate and convincing threat than medical issues five or ten years hence. When it comes to employer/employee relations of this nature, there is no true free market, as the employee must work to sustain their life (buy food, keep a roof over their head, etc.), giving a potential employer inordinate power to impose less than ideal, or (as we have seen) less than acceptable conditions that an employee, desperate to make a living, will be compelled to accept in order to eat today.
This fallacy that the free market will somehow lead to an acceptable, much less equitable, balance is debunked by centuries of abuse and misuse of power by business interests. Abuses sufficient to turn half the planet at one time toward communism (which turned out not to be a solution, but was certainly a strong indicator of the problem), to lead to US paramilitary suppression of workers and union movements in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to which current administration policies, and attitudes such as expressed by you, seem to be returning us today.
If you are unsure of the chemicals you have in your environment, consult independent authorities on the subject and see if there are health risks.
And if you have no idea, because your employer is keeping the deadliness of the toxins you are being exposed to secret (or even the fact that you're being exposed to anything secret)? Or your wages are such that you cannot afford consulting costs? Or the independent authorities (e.g. the Bush administration's EPA) aren't so independent after all, and give you bad data? Etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Blaming the victim "because s/he should have know better" has apparently become a typical Republican response to these issues, and is as inappropraite now as it has always been. Next we'll see them coaching for Colorado.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
there's just no getting around it. Chemists' average lifespans are several years shorter than the average.
When has the free market been a fallacy? In the situations you're describing, where employers abused employees, said abuses occurred only because government was involved! Business interests can only abuse when they have the power of coercion behind them.
The only organization that can use coercive threats is government. That's mandated by the public will!
Bush's EPA is enforced by the majority's will. The private free market UL is not coercive.
If the toxins are secret, you still accepted the job. You accepted the risk. You accepted the reward. If you don't want risks, don't accept the reward of the salary offered. Work a job you know has low risks.
Left to its own devices, industry will have 12 year olds working 18 hours days. Regulation makes the crap you buy at walmart a few pennies more expensive. It's well worth it.
Or do you just think you're one of the few, talented chosen ones, who could never need help from someone else -- that society's downtrodden are just getting what they deserve. Social Darwinism at work, right?
IBM CEO: I said adopt Open Source - not Open Sores, you morons!
If IBM actually (theoretically) cared about their workers, they might want to track the incidences of diseases, particularly cancer or unusual ailments, to see if their workers had any problems in greater proportion to the general population or other similar populations. If IBM saw an increase, they would know that something was wrong but not necessarily the cause; epidemiological data implicating a primary cause would be nontrivial (or impossible) to get - while they would know of increased risks, they wouldn't have a way to minimize those risks. While IANAL, I don't think a mortality file necessarily implicates IBM in this.
Another poster said that IBM's hazard minimization (at least at their Essex plant) was inconsistent with adequate performance at work. If IBM knew that there was a potential risk (as with nearly all chemicals) and yet did not try to find procedures compatible with minimizing those risks (if that was possible) would that make IBM potentially liable?
those people that contracted brain cancer by working at one of IBMs plants. Not just any type of cancer, but a very rare form was found in at least 2 employees on one location. Something that is not statisticly possible unless the chemicals they worked with were the cause. But I didn't read the article.
When has the free market been a fallacy? In the situations you're describing, where employers abused employees, said abuses occurred only because government was involved! Business interests can only abuse when they have the power of coercion behind them.
That is flat out revisionist history, factually incorrect and disingenuous.
The worst excesses of business may occur when business manages to coopt government, but many, many appalling excesses occur in the absence of government, or in lassaiz-faire situations. Child labor of the 19th century in America (which WAS constitutional BTW), the diamond trade in Africa today, slavery in the middle east and parts of Africa today (where governments stand by and do not enforce their own laws, i.e. lassaiz-faire, and in places where government effectively doesn't exist), and the list goes on.
Just because government has been used by business to appalling ends in the past does not mean business doesn't engage in appalling practices when the government stands idly by.
The free market can be terribly coercive, whenever the balance of power or need is too disparate. Medical care, the need to eat, monopolies are all examples where one party is vastly more powerful and coercive than the other, and examples in which the free market breaks down completely.
If the toxins are secret, you still accepted the job. You accepted the risk. You accepted the reward. If you don't want risks, don't accept the reward of the salary offered. Work a job you know has low risks.
Do you even listen to yourself?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
There are plenty of jobs where you have dangerous work. However the employer isn't always liable if you get hurt/killed for anything more than workmans comp.
One situation, which I suspect is what happened here from what I've read, is if they provide the necessary saftey gear and procedures and you ignore them. This sort of thing happens all the time. Donning safety gear is a pain and time consuming, as is getting necessary equipment. So you ignore it.
Like at my last job, we needed to move some Cisco 7513 routers to a palette to be taken away. According to OSHA regs, they were too heavy for a person to lug around, we should have gotten a tool to help us. That would take too much time, we just lifted them by hand. Well, had we injured ourselves, the university would have paid workmans comp and medical bills as required. However if we sued, we'd probably get nothing since we weren't following proper procedure.
I have a feeling that the employees either knew the risks, or didn't take the time to review the safety material provided to them and chose to not use proper saftey gear. Then they decided that the normal comp wasn't enough and sued. Jury disagreed since they were the ones not doing as they should.
I don't know this for a fact, however.
Need a 'noone pays' system - all lawyers should be supplied at random from a pool to prosecute or defend each side of the case. To fund this system, the lawyers would be paid a portion of the proceeds from each case where a verdict results in the transfer of funds (say, from $1000 and up). For those cases where no transfer of funds from one party to the other results, then each side will submit the amount of money needed to cover the cost of the legal effort his or her side expended.
I remember seeing a bit on this on one of the documentary shows... 60 minutes, I think.
What struck me more than anything else was just how stupid the employees were. There was one woman who said that a certain chemical she used had a tendency to corrode her rubber gloves. They asked her what she did when that happened. She just kept on working with her bare hands instead.
It seemed very irresponsible for the workers to only start wondering about this AFTER they started getting cancer statistics.
However, I still think that IBM must have had some idea this was going on... There were some shady memos uncovered by the documentary, and at some stages the workers did ask IBM's health officials to look into the problem. At which point they bought some doctors to tell the employees that there was no risk. That's not behaviour of a party that really wanted the truth to be discovered.
Here in Ontario, the responsibility for safety is balanced between both parties. Basically, if a worker thinks there is anything unsafe going on, the worker has a right to refuse to work until it has been proven to be safe. So the responsibility for a safe environment is still on the employer, but the worker needs to recognize when something might be unsafe. To that end, all employees are educated in this either during their higher education or when they start a job.
Now Jose Worker and Randeep Worker will
do the job for less money.
Big business controls the rules.
Ha. Ha.
All the harzardous chemical jobs have been outsourced to China long ago. Less litigation and workers compensation costs there.
And IBM was aqcuitted. You seem not to be focussing on that part. And with medical evidence, you give me a small enough data set, or enough parameters to fit against, and I'll find a tenuous, statistically-insignificant relationship between *something* and some kind of cancer.
Bottom line, let's stick to reporting news, and letting the nominally intelligent reader base make up its own mind. We don't need preaching, Michael, and you put it in every story.
I had cancer (thyroid); I also had a bad 75GXP.
Is there any problem that IBM hasn't caused?
Rishi Chopra
www.rishichopra.org
One would have to compare the employeees with persons of a similar age and location. Significantly, the IBM plant is in an area where pesticide use was heavy (orchards in the area), and asbestos contaminates the air naturally. Looking at the first two plaintiffs, one had worked in the fruit processing industry for decades (can we say pesticides?), was obese (recently shown to be a significant factor in breast cancer development - and her suit was based on breast cancer. The other one was a heavy smoker. Smoking has recently been shown to increase the risk of non-hodgkins lymphoma - exactly what the man has.
this wouldn't be a problem. But, as with lawyers (it is supposed to be difficult to pursue lawyers for malpractice, even for such things as falling asleep during a trial) and police officers (the "blue wall of silence"), doctors decided that protecting the incompetents among them is much more professional than trying to get rid of them (or hold them responsible for their actions). What other routes do the legitimate victims of incompetence have to pursue bad doctors and/or receive compensation for their losses? The AMA probably will do little - other than criminal malpractice (which has an even higher burden of proof), there aren't any alternatives.
If people can't trust that professionals in a field will do the right thing then people resort to the judicial system; if mistakes happen often and people stop trusting professionals in a field (or anyone else), then people will rely on the courts as the sole means to remedy their issues. Once that happens, the sheer flow of complaints almost guarantees that meritless cases will be difficult to separate from valid cases and that the separation will be time-consuming.
If doctors had cared more about providing better care than covering the misdeeds of their bad apples, malpractice suits would likely be fewer, easier dismissed or carried on, and perhaps less costly.
But what is right thing? And more importantly, how does one determine this without the benefit of hindsight?
Our health, and the health of our loved ones, is an intensely emotional issue because it's so very personal. If you're treated for an illness by a medical professional, and you don't get better, or even get worse, you're obviously going to be upset. The human reaction is to look for someone to blame for your woes. Many people, with the help of their lawyers, look to the doctor.
It's easy in hindsight to say that if only the doctor had checked for this, or prescribed that, or done this other thing then I'd be fine today. But that's the 20/20 vision of hindsight. In retrospect, the doctor's actions might have been a mistake. But the doctor weighted the evidence she had at the time and chose the action she felt was the most appropriate. A mistake is not negligence, and mistakes, unlike negligence, do not need punishment, whatever the emotion involved.
There's a choice quote from the article I linked to:
It's the emotion of the jury that leads to the degree of injury determining whether a suit on a doctor succeeds or not. Whether there is negligence or not is irrelevant in the practice of law (if not in the letters). Who would want to be a doctor in that kind of environment? And what does that mean for the rest of us seeking medical care?The free market is a fallicy when there is no "do nothing" option. There is no free market in health care, nobody is willing to die if they can't come up with the money. There is no free-market in the labor force because there is nothing to fall back on if you quit or are fired "with cause". (Unemployment only covers being laid off.)
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
but when people make lots of mistakes, should they continue to practice medicine? Let's say that I am an incompetent driver - that I get in lots of accidents, mostly at-fault, or have lots of tickets for reckless driving, DUI, etc. Eventually I won't be able to drive (or it will be extraordinarily expensive for me to do so), and this is probably reasonable. I have shown myself to be a danger to others, and shouldn't be allowed to impose that danger on others.
I don't think people should pursue doctors for simple errors, but (I don't know the source) a small fraction of doctors are responsible for a large fraction (30-50%) of malpractice claims. Medicine is inherent risky - mistakes carry the risks of permanent diability or death, and so any mistake is likely to be bad for someone. If a doctor continues to make mistakes, he either needs to figure out why he is making mistakes and verifiably stop, or he needs to stop being a doctor.
Incompetence at a medical level is not just single instances of errors, but repeated instances of errors (or a single error indicative of stunning stupidity or laziness). When a doctor makes lots of errors, one would have hoped that the AMA or other doctors would have responded with corrective action - but they have not for the most part. When doctors are unable and unwilling to discipline their own for demonstrated incompetence (egregious single mistakes or multiple mistakes), there is present both a legitimate legal malpractice claim (the doctor and others knew that he had problems that went uncorrected, and the knowledge by all of them that mistakes are costly) and no alternative arena to go to (other than criminal malpractice - manslaughter, etc., which may be both incorrect and more difficult to prove).
The right thing is not all that hard in this case. People who make lots of serious errors (>=3?) should stop being doctors, either temporarily or permanently. There should be some sort of training to understand the nature of the mistakes and ways to correct them and to help doctors to prevent such mistakes. This process should be at least partially transparent to patients, so they can be able to trust their doctors. This, however, hasn't happened. Incompetent doctors aren't disciplined often by their peers (who would best understand their mistakes and how to correct them).
The growth in malpractice insurance and lawsuits, I believe, has occurred because doctors are unwilling to remove or punish incompetence - as a result, the only available place to seek justice is the courts. The courts are less likely to understand medical issues, and the more cases they see, the harder it is to separate wheat from chaff, so this leads to more bad cases - cases of people seeking compensation for a mistake undeserving of such, or people out to scam the system.
Doctors make mistakes and that is understandable. When a profession as a whole is unwilling to deal with its mistakes and make efforts to correct them, or is not willing to deal with the minority of its members who are truly and consistently incompetent, then the only means left for those aggrieved by doctors is the courts, and you get what we have now.
If my facts are wrong, please tell me. If the facts are correct, I think that my conclusions are not unreasonable.
it doesn't seem very deep, but it seems both relevant to the topic at hand and reasonable. It doesn't provide a solution, but most posts don't anyway.
This paragraph takes your description outside the realm of a free market economy and into the world of fraud. Free market exchanges require informed consent; knowing exactly what I'm buying and exactly what I'm paying.
Strict Liberitarianism calls for the government to do little more than combat force and fraud. I am inclined to belive that even the most conservative and lazie-faire amoung us would wish the above employer's head be handed to them.
From the CDC report Mortality by Occupation, Industry, and Cause of Death: 24 Reporting States (1984-1988) (not the freshest data, I know): chemical engineers (age 20 & up) have a proportionate mortality ratio of 129; computer programmers have a PMR of 174. The big losers, if you're interested, are airplane pilots and navigators (8,795) and "insulation workers" (a staggering 21,188 -- although I doubt it would turn out to be statistically significant). Waiters and cosmetologists both clock in PMRs of over 1000, interestingly enough.
I suspect that once you control for education, race and socioeconomic status chemical engineers don't come out doing quite as well as, say, astrophysicists, but clearly they're not all spilling hydrofluoric acid on themselves on a daily basis.
Sorry for my incorrect statement. I'm rather glad to be proven wrong, as a good friend of mine is a biochemist.
Still, to drag myself back to topicality: I'm still convinced that I wouldn't ever want to work in a cleanroom.