Berlin's Victory

An Illinois doctor last week won the most significant victory yet in the medical profession's counterattack on harassing malpractice suits. In Chicago, a circuit court jury awarded Radiologist Leonard Berlin $8,000 in his countersuit against a patient who had named him in a $250,000 malpractice suit.

The patient, Harriett Nathan, had come to the suburban Skokie Valley Community Hospital in October 1973 for treatment of a finger that she had injured while playing tennis. An X ray, taken under Dr. Berlin's supervision, failed to disclose a small fracture that was later located by another X ray. This prompted Nathan to file her quarter-million-dollar suit against Dr. Berlin, the hospital and the orthopedic surgeon who had treated her.

Berlin promptly countersued both Nathan and her lawyer husband, who helped her to bring the malpractice suit against him "without reasonable cause," and also sued her lawyers for filing the suit without proper investigation. When she subsequently dropped her suit, Berlin decided to press on. He admitted that the fracture had not shown up in the first X ray, but demonstrated that the treatment Nathan received was the same as that normally given for a fracture. That was enough to convince the jury, which deliberated only 15 minutes before giving Dr. Berlin $2,000 in compensatory and $6,000 in punitive damages. The award was directed not only against Nathan and her husband but also against her two attorneys.

Berlin's victory may well help to stem both the rising number of malpractice cases and the increasingly large awards, which have driven malpractice insurance costs beyond the reach of many doctors (TIME, March 24, 1975). The verdict, says Dr. Max Parrott, president of the American Medical Association, should "discourage the filing of frivolous, nonmeritorious cases against doctors" and "puts lawyers on notice that they are placing themselves in jeopardy if they do not adequately investigate a case before filing suit."

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