Court permits contingency fee waiver

Passed by voters in November 2004 as Amendment 3, the law limits attorneys' fees to 30 percent of the first $250,000 recovered and 10 percent of all damages in excess of that amount in medical malpractice cases.

Since its passage, some trial attorneys have had medical malpractice claimants waive their rights under the fee cap. The attorneys said such cases are too expensive to bring under the smaller fees.

Too expensive? I thought expenses came off the top.

Anyway, look at this:

"We will work to warn the public about the procedure that greedy lawyers will be using to take an unconstitutional share of the client¹s funds," the FMA said in a statement on its Web site. "And if the procedure does not include judicial oversight, the FMA believes that physicians in Florida will be able to follow the same procedure established by the court to have potential patients waive their right to bring a medical malpractice action against the physicians. The FMA will advocate the use of a similar form and waiver procedure for physicians to use in their practices."

What would motivate a patient to sign away their right to sue? And what court wouldn't ignore the waiver if signed? If you told a patient he needed a procedure and then required he sign a waiver before you would do it, his attorney would just argue that he believed the only way to get this "life-saving" procedure would be to sign the waiver.