J700
Universitv Daliv Kansan, February 9, 1983
Page 11
Med Center malpractice payments rising
By MICHAEL BECK
Staff Reporter
Malpractice payoffs at the University of Kansas Medical Center reflect the national trend toward dramatically higher payments, attorneys and malpractice insurance spokesman said yesterday.
But they said the amounts of payment for Douglas County malt practice settlements had leveled off in recent years.
Ralph Grundelfinger, claim manager of Argonaut Insurance Co., which handles claims for the Med Center, said the number of malpractice suits had grown, but the amount of settlements showed the most dramatic jump.
Grundelfinger he recently set out of court for $1.3 million in a fraud.
HE SAID HIS HIGST settlement was $3.3 million in a case three years ago that involved the paralysis of a 17-year-old girl.
Grundeflinder attributed the high cost of payments to rising medical care
Reid Holbrook, a Kansas City, Mo.
attorney, said many metropolitan areas has a higher settlement amounts than the rest.
He said that rural juries awarded new settlement because they tended to be more lenient.
Holbrok also said juries were usually sympathetic to plied plain-
BILL LAYTON, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, said statistics showed that patients were becoming more aware of their option to sue. The number of suits rose 16 percent to 20 percent over last year and the amount of payments rose 17 percent.
Layton said the number of suits filed had been increasing for 20 years.
John Lungstrum, a Lawrence attorney specializing in malpractice suits, said Douglas County did not seem to reflect national increases in the severity of malpractice suits and the dramatic increase in the severity of payments.
Lungstum said the number of malpractice suits had increased since he had been in Lawrence, but were starting to level off.
In 10 years, he said, the number of
doctors in Douglas County had doubled. But he said the influx was slowing so the rate of malpractice suits was declining.
LUNGSTRUM ALSO said a decline of doctors who were willing to testify in a malpractice suit also was responsible for suits leveling off.
Plaintiffs often hire doctors from different cities to testify in malpractice suits because doctors in the same area testify against their peers, he said.
Michael Dutton, of the Kansas Insurance Department, said the number of malpractice suits as well as the number of fraud cases had increased slightly since last year.
He said that in 1976, the state created the Kansas Health Care Stabilization Fund, which takes state-imposed surcharges on malpractice insurance premiums and holds the money for payment of awards. The fund was created, he said, because many insurance companies were planning to leave the state to avoid a rash of malpractice suits.
Dutton said that the Stabilization Fund had a balance of $10 million and
that doctors involved in law suits could have as much money as they needed.
HOWEVER, HE SAID, a proposed bill in the Kansas Legislature would impose a limit on the funds used and institute mandatory surcharges.
Holbrook said the screening panels were not used often because they were not well trained.
Another technique the state has used to get insurance companies to stay in Kansas is a screening panel, set up to give litigators some idea of how their case will fare in court, Dutton said. The three-member panel consists of doctors who decide whether medical negligence is present, he said.
Lungstum said nearly all medical malpractice suits in Douglas County were settled out of court, reflecting the failure to reach 90 percent out-of-court settlements.
He said the time spent waiting for trial gave each side a chance to review the case.
Kathy Sobelius, of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, said that 90 percent of all fort litigation was settled in the first two years for a case to reach the court.
Nazi chief threatens to disclose traitors
By United Press International
PARIS — France was swept by controversy yesterday over threats by Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of Lyon, to reveal the names of Frenchmen who collaborated with Nazi Germany in World War II.
Barbie, in prison at Lyon, met for two hours with his court-appointed lawyer, Jill Levine.
Barbie, 69, who was returned to France Saturday after living in sanctuary in Bolivia for 32 years, said in two interviews in the 1970s that at any future trial he would be named the French citizen in his work as Geoffalo chief in Lyon.
"In Lyon many of the French collaborated with us, they were friends; colleagues," Barbie told Paris Match magazine in 1973.
But a man who identified himself as George S., saying his mother and father never returned from a Nazi death camp after being deported by Barbie, said in
FRANCOIS LEOTARD, an opposition politician, said he feared the trial of Barbie might turn into "a spectacle, or an attempt to settle accounts."
Lyon that "Barbie will never survive to tesilify in court.
"I wouldn't take up arms in revenge, but others will," he said.
Officials of the Montcluc prison in Lyon, where Barbie was being held, said he was waiting to receive his transfer. The defense rejected to form the basis for his defense.
Barbie, known as "The Butcher of Lyon," allegedly ordered the detention, torture and execution of 4,000 Jews and resistance fighters.
BARRIE COULD only be tried under France's 1964 "crimes against humanity" law against atrocities for political and religious beliefs or racial origin.
Barbie could not be tried for war crimes because the war crimes statute expired in France 20 years after World War II ended. He was sentenced to death in 1952 and in 1954 in France while absent, under the war crimes act.
Six civil law suits have been filed against Barbie
Nazi hunter Beate Klarfsed said the two suits that will be used if he was brought to trial, as was likely, charged from his dept. of justice from Ilien and 83 adult Jews from Lyon to certain death in concentration camps.
Applications available for English scholarships
Students may begin applying for the English department's student achievement and writing competitions. Alan Lichter, professor of English, said
Lichter said students could apply for the James B. Kennedy Scholarships for undergraduate study of literature; the Kenneth Rockwell Scholarships and the Edwin M. Hopkins Scholarships for undergraduate and graduate study of literature; and the Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Fellowships for graduate-student teachers who show promise as scholars and teachers.
The amount of the awards depends on the number of entries, he said. Awards based on performance are given.
Hogan praised KU faculty, staff and students for cooperating with the University during the Christmas slowdown. Many of them had to work on campus during the time heat was reduced.
Temperatures in many campus buildings were lowered to 45 degrees, while buildings with equipment or experiments sensitive to cold were lowered to 60 degrees or Kent at 68 degrees.
Hogan said that the University had no plans to reduce heat in campus buildings over spring break or next Christmas break.
Pharmacy professor gets administrative post
lighting who was reduced, he said.
SINCE LAST, July 1, KU has saved
$496,000 in utility costs, he said.
Fan blowers in buildings were shut off during the break and outside lighting also was reduced, be said
A KU pharmacy professor was named associate vice chancellor for research, graduate studies and public affairs. For more information, go to forwitz, vice chancellor of the office.
Hogan said KU used several other measures to save energy. Building temperatures before the recess were higher than during the degrees, while temperatures since the recess have averaged 65 degrees.
Patton had assumed the duties of the post Jan. 1, as a temporary replacement for Edward Meyen, who is on sabbatical. When Meyen returns, he and Patton will remain as associate vice chancellors.
TO APPLY FOR the scholarships,
students must first be nominated
In his new position, Thomas F. Patton, associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy at the North KU research centers and institutes.
Lowering thermostats cuts KU utility costs
Lowering thermostats in campus buildings over Christmas break helped the University of Kansas save more than $200,000 in utility bills. William Hogan, associate vice chancellor, said yesterday.
Hogan said that KU saved $92,238 in December and $115,000 in January. Lowering the heat in buildings from Dec. 23 to Jan. 2 contributed to an increase in his monthly income. Hogan said, but his office has not determined yet exactly how much
scholarships; $1300 for the Rockwell and Hopkins scholarships; and $445 for the Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Fellowships. he said.
PATTON SAID that attracting high-technology industries to Kansas was a key factor.
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"The most noteworthy goal voted on was to elect in 1984 a president and Congress who will actively support a freeze." Rundel said.
KU trio attends seminar on world disarmament
"People are breaking out of the idea that they don't have to reach out to them because they're not there."
Last year's meeting was almost a gathering of upper-class intellectuals.
Patton came to KU from the University of Wisconsin in 1975. He was promoted from assistant to associate professor in 1979.
Patton said he thought universities and industries had cooperated more in recent years because of mutual economic interests.
With less state and federal research grants available, universities are looking to industries for financial support, he said.
THE RESOLUTION calls for an immediate and mutually verifiable halt by the United States and the Soviet
Although the campaign's short-term goal is passage of the freeze resolution, Rundel said another goal was to elect candidates in the next national election.
"But it's more 'ify' in the Senate," he said, "because it's still controlled by the Republicans."
Mike Rundel, Logan senior, said he had been impressed by the greater numbers of racial minorities in Denver and that was the last one, which was held in Denver.
By ANNE FITZGERALD Staff Reporter
Lori Smith, Parsons junior, said she had found people at the conference hopeful and friendly, but said she was disappointed because a majority of participants were older than she.
National freezee coordinators are planning a citizens' lobby of Congress to promote the resolution's passage. As part of the lobby, freeze proponents from across the country are to rally in front of the congress to visit their congressmen March 7 and 8.
"THE PRIMARY stumbling block to its passage is getting the word across to more people through the campaign, greater awareness," Crockett said.
Three KU students joined more than 600 nuclear freeze proponents from 47 states in St. Louis, Md., last weekend to plan their strategies for disarmament.
John Linscheid, president of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, said that the freeze resolution would good chance of being passed in the hague.
A freeze resolution was introduced in the last session of Congress, but failed to pass.
Staff Reporter
Linscheid said the Lawrence coalition was encouraging people to contact their representatives and sign petitions in support of the resolution.
The freeze advocates heard speeches from nationally known figures in the anti-nuclear movement, such as Helen Cal迪cott, who gave up her practice as a pediatrician to lead Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group committed to nuclear disarmament; retired Admiral Gene LaRocque, who is director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C.; and Randell Forsburg, founder of the campaign.
"It was a very upbeat meeting." Scott Crockett, Kansas City, Kan., law student, said. "There was a very positive feeling among the participants."
Many people do not understand that the resolution calls for a bilateral agreement.
The meeting was the third annual conference for the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.
Summer Orientation Program
"ONCE THE FREEZE is in place, the objective will be for both sides to negotiate nuclear weapons' reduction." he said. "The ultimate goal is no more."
Passage of a mutually verifiable nuclear freeze resolution by Congress is the immediate goal of the campaign, Crockett said.
1983
STUDENT STAFF POSITIONS
Required Qualifications:
Minimum 2.0 gpa; returning to KU for Fall 1983 Term. Undergraduates and first year graduate students may apply.
Critics of the movement have said a
freeze the freeze could never be en-
force.
Leadership abilities; knowledge of University programs and activities; interpersonal communications skills; enthusiasm about University
JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN THE OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS 126 STRONG HALL
Rep. Dan Glickman, D-Kan., co-sponsored the resolution's introduction into this session of Congress.
Desired Qualifications:
(913) 749-5319
Union to the testing, production and further deployment of nuclear arms.
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