TV ads appear for and against Amendment 3, which limits lawyers' fees in medical malpractice.
By LISA GREENE
Published September 18, 2004
The television ad promoting Amendment 3 blasts greedy lawyers.
The ad opposing the same amendment targets incompetent doctors.
The first ad was made by Citizens for a Fair Share - a group that, although the name doesn't say so, is linked to Florida doctors. The second? By Floridians for Patient Protection, a group backed by Florida lawyers.
The ads about the amendment - which limits lawyers' fees in medical malpractice cases - are the opening salvo in the war between the professions that will culminate in three constitutional amendments on the November ballot. If the early ads are any indication, the campaign will be hard fought - a doctor vs. lawyer smackdown that will play on fear and anger.
"It's gonna be interesting," said Dr. Dennis Agliano, a Tampa otolarygologist/head and neck surgeon and president of the Florida Medical Association. "It'll be very active."
It also will be costly. Citizens for a Fair Share has raised about $6.3-million, while Floridians for Patient Protection has raised even more: $16.5-million. TV ads recently started running around the state; on one Tampa cable system Thursday night, the two opposing ads ran back to back on CNN.
While both groups are cagey about their plans, it's a safe bet that voters will hear plenty more from both sides.
Amendment 3 would target lawyers' fees. Now, it's customary for lawyers who collect a settlement to receive a sizable portion of the proceeds, generally 30 to 40 percent, plus costs of preparing the case.
The amendment would limit lawyers' fees to 30 percent of the first $250,000 of an award and 10 percent of damages over that.
Citizens for a Fair Share's ad opens with a woman sitting in a wheelchair. "My doctor hurt me - bad," she says as she turns to face the camera. A jury said she deserved a million dollars, "but my lawyer took almost half," she says with indignation. She goes on to say that Amendment 3 would allow a lawyer to get expenses plus a $150,000 fee, and that lawyers who won't take cases for that "should be ashamed."
Some critics say the ad is misleading. The sympathetic woman isn't a real patient, but an actor.
"Is that a real case?" asked St. Petersburg lawyer Roy Glass, who specializes in medical malpractice. "If not, it's deceptive."
But the "dramatization" is a story that voters will relate to and "clearly shows why patients deserve their fair share," said Citizens spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst.
"The viewers and the voters will make the decision," she said.
Some of the same doctors groups backing Amendment 3 campaigned hard for a cap on damage awards to patients in medical malpractice cases in the last session of the Legislature.
Carl Flatley, a board member with the patient protection group, said the woman in the ad doesn't portray how victims really feel. Flatley's 23-year-old daughter, Erin, died two years ago, and the family thinks medical negligence caused her death.
"I've never met anybody who complained about the fees," he said. "You couldn't emotionally go through the day-by-day research on your own. You have to have a competent attorney."
Flatley, a retired Dunedin endodontist, says that giving patients more money sounds like a good idea. But in reality, Flatley said, the amendment would hurt victims. It would keep more complex, potentially costly cases out of court, because lawyers can't gamble on spending the money to prepare them for a smaller return, Flatley said.
The ad sponsored by Flatley's group opens with a parade of somber statistics. Medical errors are the nation's sixth-leading cause of death. In Florida, 5,400 lives will be lost this year because of medical mistakes. The numbers, as the group points out, aren't just pulled out of the sky. The source for each fact runs across the screen.
But in its frightening drumbeat against medical mistakes, it never mentions that the actual subject of Amendment 3 is how much money lawyers get.
Instead, the ad says the amendment would give "special legal protection" to even the worst doctors, though that protection appears to be simply a lower incentive for lawyers to take patients' cases.
"Their TV ad is almost ridiculous, because all they're saying is there are people who are hurt and injured," Agliano said. "We agree there are people who are hurt and injured."
Agliano said the group's amendment would do simply what it says: Help malpractice victims by giving them more money.
"Are we feeling sorry for the attorneys for not making enough money?" he said. "It turns my stomach" to hear lawyers say they won't take on such cases if they are paid less.
The other two amendments on the ballot dealing with medical issues are sponsored by Floridians for Patient Protection - the lawyer-backed group. One would revoke the licenses of doctors who have three or more legal judgments or official discipline actions against them. The other would give patients the right to know about doctors' and hospitals' medical mistakes.
