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Mark McGrath,
"Surviving
Wrongful Death Part I: An Overview", North Carolina
Lawyers Weekly, September 4, 2006.
As statues go, North Carolina's wrongful death statute is a
seemingly benign piece of legislation. Under common law,
all tort claims were extinguished or "abated" by the death of
their holder, regardless of the degree of pain, suffering or
general misery endured by the deceased prior to his demise.
Our General Assembly saw fit to rectify that inequity by
enacting the North Carolina wrongful death stature, presently
codified at G.S. § 28A-18-2.
Read the Full
Story: Surviving Wrongful Death Part I: An
Overview
Mark McGrath,
"Surviving
Wrongful Death Part II: Shall it be Survival or Death?",
North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.
From the perspective of a trial attorney, few things spawn
greater desperation than a clear liability case that is
saddled with questionable medical causation. This
disheartening combination of facts can be especially
devastating when the negligence of a defendant causes an
innocent person to suffer terribly for a period of time, only
to perish later of conditions that are, arguably, unrelated to
the original injury.
Read the Full
Story: Surviving Wrongful Death Part II: Shall it
be Survival or Death?
Mark McGrath,
"Surviving
Wrongful Death Part III: Timing is Everything" North
Carolina Lawyers Weekly.
The statutes of limitation enacted by the North Carolina
General Assembly appear at first blush to be paradigms of
clarity. But don’t let that fool you. North Carolina’s sunset
statutes can be mighty tricky critters, especially when they
are applied to wrongful death cases.
Read the Full
Story: Surviving Wrongful Death Part III: Timing
is Everything
Mark McGrath,
"Familiarity Breeds Success: Strategies For
Bullet-Proofing The Medical Expert In Malpractice
Cases"
North
Carolina Lawyers Weekly.
In Wiggins v. Piver, 276 N.C. 134, 171
S.E.2d 393 (1970), the North Carolina supreme court rejected the
"locality rule" in favor of the "same or similar communities"
standard. Following Wiggins, the North Carolina General
Assembly codified the same or similar communities standard in
N.C. Gen. Stat. Sect. 90-21.12.
Learn More: Strategies For Bullet-Proofing The
Medical Expert In Malpractice Cases
Mark McGrath,
"Back to the Horse and Buggy Days: North Carolina
Courts Harken A Return To The 'Locality Rule' In Medical
Malpractice Cases"
North
Carolina Lawyers Weekly.
In a remarkable turn of events,
recent decisions of the North Carolina courts augur a return to
the locality rule, or some variant of it, and reveal that, like
the reports of Twain's death, the demise of the locality rule
pronounced in Wiggins was greatly
exaggerated.
Click
Here: A Return To The 'Locality Rule' In Medical
Malpractice Cases
Mark McGrath,
"A Jury of
Their Peers? The High Price of Peer Review Confidentiality"
North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers
The peer review privilege ensures
that patients and their families will never know much of what
goes on behind closed hospital doors. The privilege protects
from disclosure all activities of peer review committees- bodies
of physicians and other providers that are formed for the
purpose of evaluating the quality of services rendered in
healthcare institutions and to oversee the credentialing and
assessment of medical staff members.
Click Here for: A
Jury of Their Peers? The High Price of Peer Review
Confidentiality
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