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Administrative "Health Courts" for Medical Injury Claims
The Federal Constitutional Issues
Published: August 2008
A bill in introduced into Congress in 2005 and advocated by Common Good, a nonprofit organization, and professors Michelle Mello and David Studdert from the Harvard School of Public Health, aims to instigate pilot programs for health courts. The new system will use specialized administrative tribunals with expert judges and neutral expert witnesses in lieu of judges and juries to award compensation in medical injury claims. This article focuses specifically on the federal constitutional issues raised by proposals to replace a traditional system of common law trials before state judges and juries with a federal system of administrative health courts. In reviewing past case law, including United States v. Lopez in which the Supreme Court made it clear that to be subject to federal regulation an activity must substantially affect interstate commerce, the authors determine two bases on which health courts might be upheld by the Supreme Court:
1. If they involve public rights.
2. If the federal government is creating a new federal cause of action that is substantively
different from state medical malpractice law.
The article concludes that a federal compensation system through health courts should be constitutional and that pilot programs should survive an equal protection challenge.
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- Common Good and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Expand Initiative to Promote Health Courts (News releases)
- Error Reporting and Injury Compensation (Journal articles)
- "Health Courts" and Accountability for Patient Safety (Journal articles)
- Health Courts, Administrative Compensation and Patient Safety: Research, Policy and Practice (Video)
- Health Courts: An Alternative for Resolving Medical Liability Claims: Research Highlight (Research highlights)
- Michelle Mello Podcast on Health Courts (Audio podcasts)
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Listed below is one grant that supported this project.
| Grant | Awarded to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Designing a reliable system of medical justice |
Common Good Institute Inc. (New York, NY) ID#: 58662 http://www.commongood.org |
Approved award: $994,560 Actual award: $976,172 February 2007 to September 2009 This grant has ended. |
RWJF may have supported this project with other grants that are not listed.
Common Good and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Expand Initiative to Promote Health Courts
Publication date:
Feb 20, 2007
Summary:
Common Good, the national nonpartisan legal reform coalition, has been awarded a two-year grant of nearly $1 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to promote the creation of special health courts to handle medical injury disputes in six states. The...
Error Reporting and Injury Compensation
By:
Barringer PJ and Kachalia AB
Publication date:
Sep 3, 2008
Summary:
This article provides an overview of state-level initiatives to improve patient safety that rely on voluntary reporting of medical errors, and discusses the status of a new federal law encouraging development of voluntary reporting initiatives. The article also...
"Health Courts" and Accountability for Patient Safety
By:
Mello MM, Studdert DM, Kachalia AB and Brennan TA
Publication date:
September 2006
Summary:
The authors compare various designs for health court systems and endorse a smaller scale demonstration project.
Health Courts, Administrative Compensation and Patient Safety: Research, Policy and Practice
Publication date:
November 01, 2007
Summary:
The fourth in a series of national forums sponsored by RWJF discussed patient-safety focused alternatives to the current medical liability system and received feedback from key stakeholders.
Health Courts: An Alternative for Resolving Medical Liability Claims: Research Highlight
By:
Necochea L
Publication date:
Oct 30, 2006
Summary:
The shortcomings of the medical tort system are widely acknowledged and have prompted substantial interest in medical liability reform. This Research Highlight covers an article describing a model for an alternative administrative compensation system featuring...
Michelle Mello Podcast on Health Courts
By:
Mello M
Publication date:
August 24, 2007
Summary:
In this podcast, Michelle Mello of the Harvard School of Public Health discusses health courts as an alternative to the current tort system for medical malpractice issues.
Health Courts: An Alternative for Resolving Medical Liability Claims
Publication date:
September 21, 2006
Summary:
New RWJF-funded research describes a model for an alternative administrative compensation system and explains its advantages over the tort system
Health Courts Offer a New Approach
Publication date:
December 29, 2006
Summary:
The many drawbacks of the medical tort system are stimulating interest in health courts as a more efficient and cost-effective alternative to the current medical malpractice claims system
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