Delays in medical malpractice litigation in civil law jurisdictions: some evidence from the Italian Court of Cassation

Abstract

Medical malpractice law and tort reform are contentious issues. In this paper, we focus on Italy as an example of a civil law jurisdiction. Italian medical malpractice law is essentially judge-made law. However, its effectiveness is likely to be curtailed by excessive delays in litigation. Several reforms have been enacted since the late 1980s to correct this situation. By making use of the decisions of the Italian Court of Cassation (which have shaped medical malpractice law) from 1970 to 2009, we show that these reforms had no general statistically significant impact on delays. Recent reduction of delays does not seem to be related to legal reforms but rather explained by other factors.

Doctors And Hospitals: A Legal Perspective On Accountability

“…Hospital is a place of legal relationship between doctor and patient. Although research on medical malpractice in civil law (Grembi & Garoupa, 2013), one of which is the research Burau et al, (2009) who examined health service cases provided by the government using empirical assessments of medical malpractice cases in civil law jurisdictions.…”

Understanding the Time to Court Case Resolution: A Competing Risks Analysis Using Belgian Data

“…In an attempt to advance our understanding of the factors influencing court disposition times, only a limited number of existing studies have been able to utilize court case-level data. Furthermore, case-level datasets utilized thus far have been either relatively small (Grembi andGaroupa 2013, Bielen et al 2015) or comparatively scarce in terms of information about case characteristics and the procedural aspects of case resolution (Eisenberg and Farber 1997, Deffains and Doriat 1999, Heise 2000, Di Vita 2012b, Christensen and Szmer 2012, Somaya 2016. 2 In this paper, we contribute to the literature on the determinants of the time to court case resolution by exploring a novel case-level dataset on a subset of civil disputes collected from a major court in Belgium, a EU member state where the slow pace of justice has been a persistent policy concern (High Council of Justice 2012).…”

“…Specifically, in addition to examining the role of a wide range of micro-level case characteristics, some of which have been found to be empirically important in prior studies on the timing of civil case resolution (e.g., Eisenberg and Farber 1997, Heise 2000, Christensen and Szmer 2012, Grembi and Garoupa 2013, Bielen et al 2015, we are able to explore the role of thus far unexplored procedural events such as the completion of hearings, exchange of pleadings, and availability of expert reports. Furthermore, our paper is the first to examine whether, and if so how, judge characteristics matter for the timing of alternative modes of court case resolution.…”

Medical Malpractice Appeals in a Civil Law System: Do Administrative and Civil Courts Award Noneconomic Damages Differently?

“…Grembi and Garoupa () assess SC decisions of medical malpractice in Italy, but the amount of compensation awarded is not generally available.…”