Jury Awards Research Articles

Film, fotografie, feit en fictie in het Pollino-gebergte (Zuid-Italië)

Film, photography, fact and fiction in the Pollino Mountains (Southern Italy)The film “Il Buco” (The Hole, 2022) by Michelangelo Frammartino is about a speleological expedition in the Pollino mountains (northern Calabria, Italy) in 1961. It won the Special Jury Award at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and received excellent reviews in the Dutch press (Volkskrant, Trouw, NRC, VPRO Cinema). In the film, an old shepherd at the end of his life observes a group of speleologists exploring an exceptionally deep cave. The shepherd dies just as the speleologists discover the end of the cave. To situate the death scene, Frammartino reconstructed a typical shepherd’s dwelling used in the days when the transhumance summer camps in the Pollino mountains were still used as shepherds’ summer dwellings. Frammartino based the reconstruction on black-and-white pictures from the archive of Giuseppe De Matteis, a speleologist from Turin, who took part in the expedition. De Matteis took several photographs of such shepherd´s dwellings during the period of the cave exploration, especially at the site of Mandra Vecchia, which is now part of the field study area of the Pollino Archaeological Landscape Project (PALP), led by the authors since 2020. These shepherds’ huts were made of wooden poles and planks and reinforced at ground level with limestone blocks. Other pastoral facilities, such as animal pens and sheds for cheesemaking, were located nearby. Archaeological research on the remains of these summer camps, combined with interviews, is beginning to reveal everyday life in Pollino summer camps. In this paper we bring together fact and fiction based on Frammartino’s documentary from 2021, Giuseppe De Matteis´ photo archive from the 1960s and our own fieldwork in the area.

The power of meaningful numbers: Attorney guidance and jury deliberation improve the reliability and gist validity of damage awards.

A mock jury experiment tested the effects of attorney guidance and jury deliberation to mitigate the challenges that civil juries face in assessing damages. We hypothesized that two types of attorney guidance (per diem, per diem + lump sum), theoretically based in the Hans-Reyna model of jury decision making, would improve jury decision making compared with no guidance against five key benchmarks: injury assessment, validity, reliability, verbatim-gist coherence, and metacognitive experience. We expected that deliberation would increase reliability of, confidence in, and polarization of awards compared with predeliberation. Community members (N = 317; 61% women; 86.1% White; Mage = 48.68 years) deliberated in 54 mock juries. Participants watched a videotaped trial involving an automobile accident in which two plaintiffs sustained concussions (one mild and one severe). The plaintiffs' attorney's closing arguments varied attorney guidance (no guidance, per diem, per diem + lump sum). Mock jurors provided individual judgments before deliberating as a jury and reaching group verdicts and awards. Juries performed well against benchmarks. Providing gist-based guidance with a meaningful award recommendation increased the validity of jurors' individual damage awards (η²p jurors = .03) and the reliability of jury damage awards (η²p jurors = .04; η²p jurors = .20); gist-based guidance without an award recommendation did not improve performance against benchmarks and increased perceptions of decision-making difficulty (η²p = .13). Deliberation increased reliability of (η²p = .17), confidence in (η²p = .02), and polarization of (d = 2.14) awards compared with predeliberation. Juries performed well against objective benchmarks of performance (injury assessment, validity, reliability, and verbatim-gist coherence), and deliberation improved performance compared with predeliberation decisions. Jury decisions were further influenced by attorney closing arguments (the guidance manipulation), especially when the attorney requests a lump sum, which can serve as a powerful influence on jury awards, mainly by setting an upper limit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

РОЛЬ КРЕАТИВНИХ ФЕСТИВАЛІВ У РОЗВИТКУ КОМУНІКАЦІЙНО-РЕКЛАМНОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ В УКРАЇНІ

The article reveals the role and significance of creative festivals in the development of communication and advertising activities in Ukraine and the impact of jury awards on the overall rating of agencies. It has been established that the evaluation of projects by participants of creative festivals is carried out according to various criteria: creativity, originality, effectiveness, efficiency, innovation, strategy, quality of execution, compliance with client goals, impact on the brand (business, culture, society), etc. The basic criteria for evaluating projects of participants in international and Ukrainian creative festivals have been analyzed. The system of scoring for the participation of domestic communication agencies in national and international creative festivals has been studied. The methodology for calculating the national rating "Communication Agency of the Year" has been described, which is based on the ratings "National Creativity Rating" (Creativity&Craft) and "National Effectiveness Rating" (Effectiveness) with the application of weight coefficients. Creative festivals are events organized to review and evaluate creativity, innovation, and creativity in various fields. Communication agencies, creative teams and independent creative experts present their projects or ideas to the jury. The use of creative and original approaches by agencies to capture and retain the attention of clients led to the idea of launching a specialized advertising festival at the Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Lions). The first Lions were awarded in Venice in 1954. The second festival was held in Monte Carlo, and the third in Cannes. After that, the international event was alternately held in Venice and Cannes, and since 1984, Cannes has been the sole venue. A new trend emerged, and other creative festivals gradually began to appear, such as: Clio Awards (1959), D&AD (Design and Art Direction) (1962), Effie Worldwide (1968), The One Show (1975), LIA (London International Awards) (1986), Epica Awards (1987), Eurobest (1988), ADCE Awards (Art Directors Club of Europe) (1990), Golden Drum (1993).

Analysis of Medical Malpractice Claims Involving Interventional Radiologists: A Comprehensive Analysis From Two National Legal Databases

PurposeThe nature of lawsuits involving interventional radiologists (IRs) is not well understood. The purposes of this article are to provide an overview of the causes of action underlying medical malpractice lawsuits related to IRs and to characterize the associated factors and outcomes. MethodsTwo large legal databases were used to search for US legal cases in which there were jury awards and settlements involving IRs in the United States. Cases were screened to include only those cases in which the cause of action involved negligence on the part of IRs. ResultsA total of 389 published case summaries were identified, of which 93 were eligible to be included in the analysis. In 46% of the cases (43 of 93), medical malpractice was alleged against an individual IR, whereas in 43% (40 of 93), it was alleged against both an individual IR and a health care institution. Thirty-five percent of IR malpractice cases (33 of 93) involved the performance of a vascular procedure, most commonly embolization procedures (30% [n = 10]), stenting or angioplasty (21% [n = 7]), and diagnostic arteriography and angiography (18% [n = 6]). Twenty-six percent of cases (24 of 93) involved IR performance of a biopsy. Eighteen percent of cases (17 of 93) involved a failure to gain informed consent in addition to an allegation of medical negligence during treatment. Eleven percent of cases (10 of 93) were resolved by settlement, with an average settlement amount of $877,500 (range, $200,000-$2,700,000). Among the 72 cases that went to trial, 74% (53 of 72) resulted in judgments for the defendants, and 26% (19 of 72) resulted in judgements for the plaintiffs, with an average award of $2,012,243 (range, $101,667-$6,400,000). ConclusionsVascular procedures and biopsies were the most frequent reasons for malpractice lawsuits involving IRs. Failure to gain informed consent in addition to an allegation of medical negligence during treatment was not infrequent. Although the majority of published medical malpractice claims involving IRs resulted in judgments in favor of the defendants, the average amount awarded to plaintiffs was higher compared with previous data reported for all physicians.

Domain Decorrelation with Potential Energy Ranking

Machine learning systems, especially the methods based on deep learning, enjoy great success in modern computer vision tasks under ideal experimental settings. Generally, these classic deep learning methods are built on the i.i.d. assumption, supposing the training and test data are drawn from the same distribution independently and identically. However, the aforementioned i.i.d. assumption is, in general, unavailable in the real-world scenarios, and as a result, leads to sharp performance decay of deep learning algorithms. Behind this, domain shift is one of the primary factors to be blamed. In order to tackle this problem, we propose using Potential Energy Ranking (PoER) to decouple the object feature and the domain feature in given images, promoting the learning of label-discriminative representations while filtering out the irrelevant correlations between the objects and the background. PoER employs the ranking loss in shallow layers to make features with identical category and domain labels close to each other and vice versa. This makes the neural networks aware of both objects and background characteristics, which is vital for generating domain-invariant features. Subsequently, with the stacked convolutional blocks, PoER further uses the contrastive loss to make features within the same categories distribute densely no matter domains, filtering out the domain information progressively for feature alignment. PoER reports superior performance on domain generalization benchmarks, improving the average top-1 accuracy by at least 1.20% compared to the existing methods. Moreover, we use PoER in the ECCV 2022 NICO Challenge, achieving top place with only a vanilla ResNet-18 and winning the jury award. The code has been made publicly available at: https://github.com/ForeverPs/PoER.

Malpractice Litigation Related to Diagnosis and Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms.

Approaches to management of intracranial aneurysms are inconsistent, in part due to apprehension relating to potential malpractice claims. The purpose of this article was to review the causes of action underlying medical malpractice lawsuits related to the diagnosis and management of intracranial aneurysms and to identify the factors associated and their outcomes. We consulted 2 large legal databases in the United States to search for cases in which there were jury awards and settlements related to the diagnosis and management of patients with intracranial aneurysms in the United States. Files were screened to include only those cases in which the cause of action involved negligence in the diagnosis and management of a patient with an intracranial aneurysm. Between 2000 and 2020, two hundred eighty-seven published case summaries were identified, of which 133 were eligible for inclusion in the analysis. Radiologists constituted 16% of 159 physicians sued in these lawsuits. Failure to diagnose was the most common medical malpractice claim referenced (100/133 cases), with the most common subgroups being "failure to include cerebral aneurysm as a differential and thus perform adequate work-up" (30 cases), and "failure to correctly interpret aneurysm evidence on CT or MR imaging" (16 cases). Only 6 of these 16 cases were adjudicated at trial, with 2 decided in favor of the plaintiff (awarded $4,000,000 and $43,000,000, respectively). Incorrect interpretation of imaging is relatively infrequent as a cause of malpractice litigation compared with failure to diagnose aneurysms in the clinical setting by neurosurgeons, emergency physicians, and primary care providers.

Taxing Anxiety

A truism of tax policy is that a good taxing regime treats similarly situated taxpayers similarly. This truism, which I concede that I have espoused in class a time or two, really does not tell us much, though. Consider the taxation of damages. Under the current statute, many taxpayers do not pay taxes on the damages they receive either through jury awards or settlements. Other taxpayers, however, do pay taxes on such damages. The dividing line, right now, is whether the damages were received “on account of physical injury.” If so, no taxes; if not, taxes.

Pain, suffering, and jury awards: A study of the cost of wrongful convictions

Research summaryThis paper estimates the cost of wrongful convictions based on analysis of jury awards and settlements for individuals who were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Key variables of interest are number of days spent in prison, days on probation, and demographics of wrongfully convicted and their families. The average “cost” of a wrongful conviction is estimated to be $6.1 million, or $1334 per day of incarceration, while the marginal cost decreases over time: initial incarceration is valued at over $50,000 for the first day; year one is valued at $1.5 million ($4000/day), while the marginal cost of the 10th year is estimated to be approximately $350,000 ($950/day).Policy implicationsState mandated compensation for wrongfully convicted individuals who oftentimes spend years in prison for crimes they did not commit is highly variable and in many cases bears little relationship to either the monetary or nonmonetary harms endured. In addition to providing benchmarks for more appropriate compensation, these estimates provide a foundation for future benefit‐cost analyses of policies that might reduce wrongful convictions such as increased expenditures for DNA testing or indigent defense counsel.

Pain, Suffering and Jury Awards: A Study of the Cost of Wrongful Convictions

This paper estimates the cost of wrongful convictions and the time spent in prison based on a cross sectional regression analysis of awards and settlements for individuals who were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Key variables of interest are number of days spent in prison, days on probation, and demographics of wrongfully convicted and their families. The sample consists of all known individuals (n=514) who successfully sued for damages and received payment through either trial or settlement between 1992 and 2019. Wrongful convictions cause significant tangible and intangible harm to individuals and their families which can be monetized using ex post jury awards. The average “cost” of a wrongful conviction is estimated to be $6.1 million, or $1,334 per day of incarceration. The marginal cost decreases over time: initial incarceration is valued at over $50,000 for the first day; year one is valued at $1.5 million ($4,000/day), while the marginal cost of the 10th year is estimated to be approximately $350,000 ($950/day). Wrongfully convicting and incarcerating one individual is about as costly as the harm caused by a career criminal over their lifetime. Future research might focus on society’s ex ante willingness-to-pay to avoid wrongful convictions. This study provides policymakers with a tool to value increased expenditures for DNA testing, indigent defense counsel, and other innovations designed to reduce wrongful convictions.

Physician and Pharmacist Liability: Medicolegal Cases That are Tough Pills to Swallow.

We present four medicolegal cases involving medication errors, which led to patient harm and subsequent settlements or jury awards to patients. These cases each involved scenarios in which a medication was inappropriately prescribed and/or inappropriately dispensed. In such cases, it is often not obvious whether the physician or pharmacist is at fault. These cases highlight the importance of understanding the roles and responsibilities of the physician and pharmacist in medication prescription and dispensation.

Malpractice Litigation in Glaucoma

To analyze and report the causes and outcomes of malpractice litigation for patients with a diagnosis of glaucoma. Retrospective case series. Malpractice litigation cases. The WestLaw database was reviewed for all malpractice litigation with ophthalmologist defendants in the United States between 1930 and 2014. All litigation involving glaucoma was included in this analysis and was compared with litigation in ophthalmology as a whole. The primary outcomes were the number of cases, jury award amounts, whether the case resolved in favor of the defendant, and the type of glaucomatous disease or procedure with the highest amount of litigation. Sixty-nine glaucoma malpractice cases were included. Overall, 62.3% of cases were resolved in favor of defendants. Twenty-nine cases were resolved via jury trial, 8 of which were associated with plaintiff verdicts with a mean adjusted jury award of $994 260. Ten cases resulted in settlements with mean adjusted indemnity of $1 210 414. Commonly litigated allegations included mismanagement of glaucoma (20.3%), failure to diagnose glaucoma (17.4%), failure to diagnose or mismanagement of angle-closure glaucoma (18.5%), adverse drug effects (14.5%), and trabeculectomy complications (8.7%). Overall, the median plaintiff award for all of glaucoma litigation was $977 476; the median award across all ophthalmic subspecialties was $568 302 (P= 0.25). For jury verdicts alone, the median award in glaucoma was $977 474, compared with $604 352 for all ophthalmology (P= 0.05). For settlements alone, the median indemnity payment in glaucoma was $955 988, compared with $827 051 for all ophthalmology (P= 0.24). Overall, the rate of plaintiff verdicts was similar in glaucoma and in ophthalmology as a whole; however, the magnitude of plaintiff awards was higher in glaucoma than in ophthalmology overall. Common scenarios leading to litigation included failure to diagnose or mismanagement of glaucomatous disease, as well as adverse drug effects and surgical complications. Many cases could have been avoided with careful examinations, thorough documentation in the patients' charts, and detailed conversations with patients.

Malpractice Litigation in Vitreoretinal Surgery and Medical Retina.

To report and analyze the causes and outcomes of vitreoretinal surgery and medical retina malpractice litigation. The WestLaw database was reviewed for all vitreoretinal malpractice litigation in the United States between 1930 and 2014. One hundred forty-two retina cases were included. Overall, 64.1% of cases were resolved in favor of defendants. Eighty-three (58.5%) cases were resolved via jury trial, 30.1% of which were associated with plaintiff verdicts with mean adjusted jury award of $5,222,894 (median, $691,974). Eight cases (5.6%) resulted in settlements with mean adjusted indemnity of $726,003 (median: $437,165). Jury awards were higher than settlement awards (P = .04). Commonly litigated scenarios included retinal detachment (46.5%) and retinopathy of prematurity (9.2%). The complexity of treating vitreoretinal problems and the high potential for vision loss inherent in many diagnoses make treating retinal problems high-risk. Many cases in this series resulted in multi-million-dollar plaintiff awards. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2020;51:272-278.].

Giving Voice to Silenced Others: The Year in Spain

Giving Voice to Silenced OthersThe Year in Spain Ana Belén Martínez García (bio) A notable trend this year in Spanish life writing has been to give voice to those silenced. Following in the footsteps of a long-standing tradition of testimonial life writing worldwide, multiple lifewriting works in Spain have been turning to issues of "voice" and "silence." It is little surprise that some of these stories feature women after the global impact of the #MeToo movement. However, the trends I identified in my contribution to this feature last year (Martínez García) have persisted. Conflict continues to permeate life narratives in Spain, and as will be seen in what follows, both politics and journalism are among the most prevalent fields of study from which life writing comes. Voicing the Stories of Silenced Crimes One of the key pieces of Spanish life writing this year has been the documentary El silencio de otros, directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar. El silencio de otros, produced by acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, sheds light on the recent past in Spain, the stories of crimes committed under Francisco Franco's dictatorship that remain unsolved to date. The documentary retraces those traumatic memories by interviewing some of the survivors and witnesses seeking justice, some of whom have since died. It gives voice to their suffering and to that of others who preferred to stay unidentified. With a brilliant use of close-ups for empathic engagement (Plantinga 239) and an emotive score, the storytelling process takes viewers through a grueling six-year process of reconstruction, a journey through the concept of "historical memory."1 This term is commonly heard in the Spanish news, as it is contrasted with the Law of Amnesty, which was passed in Parliament in the late 1970s2 and is called "historical amnesia" in the film. It is no wonder that this documentary has won several prizes: the Grand Jury Award at the 2018 Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Audience Award and Peace Film Prize at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Feature at the 33rd Goya [End Page 158] (the Spanish Film Academy) Awards. It was also shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2019. El silencio de otros must be viewed in conjunction with the latest work published by Baltasar Garzón. If 2018 saw the publication of Garzón's La indignación activa,3 2019 sees his No a la impunidad: Jurisdicción Universal, la última esperanza de las víctimas, where he explores various dictatorships across the world he has helped to fight by raising legal claims. As the subtitle reads, Garzón is addressing the need for "universal jurisdiction" as "the last hope for victims." In chapter ten of this volume, Garzón explores the notion of "historical memory" in Spain and the "shadow" cast by "Francoism." Like El silencio de otros, Garzón delves into the so-called "querella argentina" [Argentinian lawsuit], whereby victims and witnesses to atrocities during Franco's regime presented a legal case in Argentina seeking reparation for crimes against humanity under the protection of international jurisdiction. The Law of Amnesty of 1977, also known as "pacto del olvido" [pact of forgetting] (Davis), is at the center of the debate in both the film and Garzón's book. At the time, it was deemed a necessary step toward democracy, tacitly acknowledging wrongs on all sides of the Spanish Civil War and the necessity not to speak of those evils any further if peace was going to prosper. Now that decades have elapsed, should those crimes remain forgotten—unspoken—in favor of national reconciliation, or should the law be revised—or overturned—so that the criminals who committed them may be tried and their victims receive reparation? A recent biography revolves around this idea. In 2019, the 31st Comillas Prize for History, Biography and Memoirs went to Javier Padilla's A finales de enero: La historia de amor más trágica de la Transición. Though the title of this massive volume might suggest a love story, that is far from the truth. This biography offers a vivid...

Private Juries within the Arbitration Framework: A Third Path in Dispute Resolution

In the context of a global pandemic and a resulting backlog of jury trials in the United States court system, this article explores the potential for employing a private jury system within the context of existing arbitration law to provide a third path for parties seeking an expedient resolution of disputes by juries when impediments exist to jury trial in court. After an introduction and background on the current state of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and its effect on court backlogs, we outline the law applicable to private jury proceedings, including (a) whether an arbitral award predicated on a private jury determination is enforceable; and (b) the requirements and limitations of a private jury award. We then conclude with a brief analysis of the considerations parties seeking to employ private jury proceedings might implement to ensure such a proceeding leads to a full and fair hearing and an enforceable award.

Renew the Encounter

Research Article| March 01 2019 Renew the Encounter RaMell Ross RaMell Ross RaMell Ross is an artist, filmmaker and writer based in Alabama and Rhode Island, where he teaches in Brown University's Visual Art Department. His debut documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening won a Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, screened in museums such as MoMA, and won the IFP Gotham Award for Best Feature Documentary. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Aperture, Harper's Magazine, TIME, Oxford American, and the Walker Arts Center's Crosscuts. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (2019) 72 (3): 17–19. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2019.72.3.17 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation RaMell Ross; Renew the Encounter. Film Quarterly 1 March 2019; 72 (3): 17–19. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2019.72.3.17 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Gilead wins reversal in dispute with Merck

A U.S. district court judge in Delaware has overturned a $2.54 billion jury award against Gilead Sciences after determining that its hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni did not violate a Merck & Co. patent. The judge also invalidated a patent through which Merck asserted its claim to royalties on sofosbuvir, the active ingredient in the two drugs. The disputed patent was originally awarded to Idenix Pharmaceuticals, which Merck acquired in 2014. Gilead obtained sofosbuvir as part of its acquisition of the biotech firm Pharmasset in 2011. The legal decision turned on whether Pharmasset derived sofosbuvir from an Idenix patent or whether it developed the compound on its own. “We believe the judge’s ruling does not reflect the facts of the case,” Merck said in a statement. The company plans to appeal. Gilead issued its own statement saying that it agrees with the judge’s decision. In his ruling, Judge Leonard

Jury award in lawsuit against AAC raises concerns about patient suicide

Alcoholism & Drug Abuse WeeklyVolume 30, Issue 9 p. 1-8 Articles Jury award in lawsuit against AAC raises concerns about patient suicide Gary Enos, Gary EnosSearch for more papers by this authorAlison Knopf, Alison KnopfSearch for more papers by this author Gary Enos, Gary EnosSearch for more papers by this authorAlison Knopf, Alison KnopfSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 February 2018 https://doi.org/10.1002/adaw.31872Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume30, Issue926 February 2018Pages 1-8 RelatedInformation

Malpractice Litigation in Cornea and Refractive Surgery: A Review of the WestLaw Database.

To report and analyze the causes and outcomes of malpractice litigation in cornea and refractive surgery. The WestLaw database was reviewed for all malpractice litigation related to ophthalmology in the United States between 1930 and 2014. Search terms included ophthalmology or ophthalmologist and malpractice anywhere in the retrieved results. All cases involving cornea and refractive surgery were included in this analysis, and results were compared with ophthalmology as a whole. One hundred fifty-nine cornea and refractive surgery cases between the years 1964 and 2014 were included. Ninety-three cases (58.5%) were resolved through a jury trial, 21.5% of which were associated with plaintiff verdicts with a median adjusted jury award of $588,896 (mean $1,518,686). Nineteen cases (11.9%) resulted in settlements with a median adjusted indemnity of $782,533 (mean $761,963). Commonly litigated scenarios included laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (74.2%) and corneal transplantation (8.2%). Overall, 88.7% of cases involved surgical or procedural claims, 8.8% involved noninterventional claims, and 2.5% involved medical claims only. Cornea and refractive surgery is a high-risk subspecialty of ophthalmology. Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis and corneal transplant claims were the most commonly litigated entities in this series. Many cases focus on failure to achieve patients' desired expectations after elective refractive procedures or the negligent performance of refractive surgery on patients with contraindications to surgery, both highlighting the importance of detailed informed consent discussions, realistic goal setting with patients, and thorough examinations and preoperative evaluation.

Damage capitation in the modern liability climate: a primer for neurosurgeons and systematic review of the literature

OBJECTIVE Neurosurgery, and particularly spine surgery, is among the most highly litigated medical specialties in the US, rendering the current malpractice climate of primary importance to spine surgeons nationwide. One of the primary methods of tort reform in the civil justice system is malpractice damage capitation (or "caps"); however, its efficacy is widely debated. The purpose of this article is to serve as a review for the practicing neurosurgeon, with particular emphasis on short- and long-term effects of damage caps and on the current debate regarding their utility, based on a systematic review of the literature. METHODS The Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines for systematic review of observational studies were used in the design of the study. Multiple medical and legal online databases (MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, and JSTOR) were queried using the key words "malpractice" and "damage capitation" for articles from 2000 to 2014. A total of 96 abstracts were screened for inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these, 22 articles were reviewed in full and another 15 were excluded for study design or poor quality of data. Five more studies were added after cross-checking the bibliographies of the included articles. The resulting 12 articles were evaluated; relevant data were extracted using a standardized metric. RESULTS Five studies were found showing varying effects of capitation on physician availability, with only 1 of these specifically showing increased availability of neurosurgery and elective spine coverage in states with capitation. Four studies demonstrated that capitation overall succeeds in decreasing jury awards and frequency of claims filed. Last, 3 studies were found showing an overall decrease in malpractice premiums for states that passed damage capitation. CONCLUSIONS There is evidence in the literature showing that total and noneconomic damage capitation has the potential to improve the practice environment for neurosurgeons nationwide. Additionally, there are other factors that affect malpractice premium rates, such as the investment markets, which are not affected by these laws. All of these are important for spine surgeons to consider and be aware of in advocating for appropriate reform measures in their states.

Merck to pay Gilead’s lawyer fees

A California federal judge has ordered Merck & Co. to pay Gilead Sciences $14 million in attorney fees in a case involving Gilead’s Sovaldi and Harvoni hepatitis C virus treatments. In June 2016, the judge overturned a $200 million jury award Merck had won in a patent infringement dispute involving sofosbuvir, an active ingredient in both drugs, after she determined Merck had lied. In December 2016, Merck won a $2.5 billion jury award from Gilead in a separate patent dispute involving the hepatitis C drugs.