Tennessee Law Blog

Leaving the Tennessee Mornings studio earlier today, I realized there were still a few points that I wasn’t able to cover on-air concerning Tennessee non-compete contracts.

Unfortunately, I still don’t have the time right now to go into most of them. Besides, each contract is unique.

Instead, what I would like to do for you Tennessee Law Blog readers is emphasize one essential point underlying the validity of any Tennessee covenant not to compete (another name for a non-compete contract) and the basis for valid disputes and negotiations. However intuitive the following might seem in the often counterintuitive Tennessee Law, the essence of any non-compete is whether the contract answers the following in the positive or the negative:

Is the non-compete clause/contract fair?

Continue reading "Tennessee Mornings Follow-Up: TN Non-Compete Contracts" »

With the Vanderbilt bacterial meningitis scare, debates about banning smoking in Nashville's parks, cancer studies linking Tennesseans' cigarette smoking to our rising number of cancer deaths, nationwide recall after Medtronic defibrillator deaths, and a marathon run through Tennessee to raise awareness about Ataxia-telangiectasia--this is already a hefty health news week in Nashville. I want to piggyback on that health news by updating this Nashville law blog's section on medical malpractice.

Medical malpractice, as it's commonly known, is when a doctor or other medical professional injures a patient, such as the Long Island woman who had a double mastectomy after a lab misdiagnosed her with a breast cancer she never had. What isn't so commonly known is that doctors and other health professionals are liable for injuries caused by those decisions they did not make as well as for decisions they waited too long to make. Figures vary, but some respectable studies attribute over 150,000 deaths a year to avoidable hospital errors. About half of these are patients who die as a result of hospital-acquired infections. Infections can lead to permanent disability if not death. Medical science has provided us a wealth of antibiotics and sterilization processes, which work great, if no one forgets or makes a mistake.

In addition to infections, another common injury seen in court but many medically injured patients overlook while suffering from its effects, is failed diagnosis. Though the attending doctor did not physically harm you, if he or she may have failed to diagnose a life-threatening disease or ailment that soon after causes you serious injury (such as an undiagnosed heart attack), then that doctor is responsible for malpractice damages. The same goes for being transferred without your assent, especially if transportation time furthered an injury or caused a new one in the process of getting you from Point A to B.

There are, of course, many other instances of medical malpractice ourattorneys see and try. As a fellow white-collar professional, what's perhaps the hardest to understand about the whole thing is how few doctors admit their mistakes. Tennessee Rules of Evidence exclude "expressions of sympathy" from the courtroom. In other words, a doctor's telling a patient or survivors that he or she is sorry and made a mistake is not admissible in court.The doctor's words of apology cannot be used against him or her in a court of law. Over 30 states other than Tennessee have passed these"apology laws," but few doctors will admit to error, often because of their medical malpractice carrier's pressure to reduce lawsuits, that is, payment for permanent or life-threatening or unnecessary injuries the insured doctor has caused.

This coming from The City Paper, a former Tennessee executive for Iasis Healthcare, one of Tennessee’s largest health care companies, has blown the whistle in a False Claims lawsuit.
Jerre Frazier worked for Iasis in Franklin, Tennessee for four years, becoming vice president for ethics and compliance and as its chief compliance officer. During this time, Frazier discovered that many of the top Iasis executives had previously worked for Nashville-headquartered HCA, a for-profit hospital chain which itself was guilty of defrauding the government through Medicare fraud totaling $1.7 billion (yes, a b as in bullion and in boy that’s a lot of money).

The allegations in the present False Claims lawsuit against Iasis Healthcare is that these executives from HCA brought their dirty business with them. Specifically, the False Claims charges are that Iasis compensated doctors for their referrals and for performing unnecessary medical services that were charged to Medicare. In return, doctors received discounted rent for office and lab space from Iasis.

Iasis owns 15 hospitals, none located in Tennessee, along with other medical facilities. If the court sides in his favor, Frazier will be awarded 15-30% of the government’s total recoveries (remember that b-illion number above) for blowing the whistle on Iasis and helping the federal government reclaim its stolen Medicare funds. The percentage depends on if the Department of Justice will pursue this matter or turn it over to private qui tam attorneys.

As part of their ongoing reportage of the graying of America, the New York Times Business Section has released a report on an increasing and disturbing trend in nursing home care: private investment companies buying national nursing home chains, having their shell corporations with little funds run the homes on a shoestring budget, and profit off the nursing home industry. The results can be death, neglect and abuse.

The article is entitled “At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing” by Charles Duhigg and is worth checking out for its information on how big business profits on nursing home care. The online article also has a great presentation on how these investment firms are able to channel profits up the corporate ladder while keeping the lowest rungs running the nursing homes bereft of funds.

The Times article also details what nursing home abuse attorneys have known for years: Getting justice for those abused in nursing homes has gotten a whole heck of a lot harder.
You can’t get blood from a stone, and the big investment firms know this. The lower rungs that provide the actual services to nursing home residents and that own the nursing homes’ assets are underfunded, despite being forced to cut costs and corners. Instead, profits are sent up the corporate ladder of ownership to the parent investment companies where it is safe from nursing home abuse fines from government agencies as well as from nursing home abuse lawsuits. So when a jury awards the victim of a negligent nursing home a monetary award, there’s no money in the shell company to pay, and in recent years these straw men companies have proved scarecrows to personal injury lawyers scaring them away from complex nursing home abuse cases.

The Higgins Firm maintains its dedication to plaintiffs who have suffered abuse, injury, or death while in a nursing home. If your loved one has suffered from nursing home abuse, let The Higgins Firm's nursing home abuse attorneys help.