Site Encourages Blacklist of Med-Mal Plaintiffs

From the Daily Business Review

In the latest effort to enable doctors to shun patients who sue, an offshore company has launched an Internet site that lists the names of plaintiffs who have filed medical malpractice cases in Florida and their attorneys.

The site, LitiPages.com, encourages doctors to consider avoiding patients who are listed in the database, and it strongly encourages plaintiffs who have lost their cases at trial to turn around and sue their plaintiffs attorney.

"If your attorney proceeded with a lawsuit without warning you of the risks involved, you may be the victim of Legal Malpractice and may be entitled to compensation," the site states.

The new Web site is likely to trigger a fresh round of acrimony between doctors and plaintiffs lawyers in their long-running war over medical malpractice litigation. Plaintiffs lawyers and medical ethics experts say the LitiPages.com site is unethical.

Andrew Yaffa, a plaintiffs attorney at Grossman Roth Olin Meadow Cohen Yaffa Pennekamp & Cohen in Boca Raton, Fla., called the site "disgusting." Yaffa said "it's a devious attempt to intimidate people from pursuing their rights."

The registered operator of the Web site, Medico-Judicial Online Media, has begun gathering data on Florida medical malpractice cases filed after July 4, said company spokesman Vishal Castun. The operators plan to make the database available for free starting next July, and eventually hope to publish a database covering medical malpractice cases across the United States.