Medical Malpractice in Your State

limiting patients' rights does not improve care or lower insurance rates

Reality Check | Price of Medical Malpractice | Victims | Lawsuits | Back to Map

Nebraska

According to the American Medical Association, Nebraska is showing "problem signs," and on its way to becoming a "crisis" state.

Reality Check:

• The number of doctors has gone up,
• the number of OB/GYNs per 100,000 women remains steady, and
• the frequency of insurance payments to victims has gone down.
  

Nebraska already has an overall medical malpractice cap, prohibits punitive damages, and does not allow joint and several liability for non-economic damages.

Price of Medical Malpractice

Source: Medical Malpractice Briefing Book: Challenging the Misleading Claims of the Doctors' Lobby, Public Citizen Congress Watch, rev. August 2004

Faces of Medical Malpractice

Late in her pregnancy, Lisa Gourley thought something was wrong. She was about to give birth to twins, but did not feel her babies moving as they should. Lisa told her doctor, but she did not conduct timely tests nor did the doctor perform an emergency cesarean section to deliver the babies.

When Lisa delivered, baby Colin showed signs of oxygen deprivation. He now suffers from quadriplegia, cerebral palsy and moderate mental retardation. Throughout his lifetime, he will incur medical expenses of approximately $6 to $7 million.

The Gourleys sued Lisa's doctor. After a two-week trial, a jury found that Lisa's doctor had committed malpractice and awarded the Gourleys $5.6 million in damages. But the Gourleys did not collect the money the jury said was owed them. That's because Nebraska "caps" total medical malpractice damage awards at $1.25 million. The Gourley's compensation was reduced by $4.35 million—every dollar of which Colin Gourley needed for his medical expenses. Nebraska's cap is currently being challenged as unconstitutional. Without the money the jury awarded, Colin's medical expenses will likely be have to be paid through taxpayer-funded state programs.

Source: American Association for Justice

Number of Personal Injury Lawsuits

There is no litigation explosion. The National Center for State Courts Recently reported that:

• Tort filings have declined by 5% since 1993. Contract filings, meanwhile, which are more likely to involve businesses than tort cases, rose by 21% over the same period.¹
  
  
• Automobile tort filings, which make up the majority of all tort claims, have fallen by 5% by 1993 and 14% since their high in 1996.¹
  
  
• Medical malpractice filings per 100,000 population have fallen 1% since 1998.²
  
  
• In 22 of the 30 states that NCSC examined population-adjusted tort findings declined from 1992 to 2001. The average change in tort filings across all 30 states was a 15% decrease.¹
  

Sources:

1. Examining the Work of State Courts, 2003, National Center for State Courts (NCSC) 2004
2. Medical Malpractice Filings per 100,000 Population in 11 and 17 States, 1993-2002, National Center for State Courts, 2004 (unpublished, on file with author)

Updated February 2005