South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Growing ranks of uninsured doctors — plus new laws and court decisions — are discouraging attorneys from taking medical malpractice cases, leaving some South Florida victims of medical errors with few options.

Attorneys, insurance officials and doctors said the number of new malpractice lawsuits has tumbled in recent years. The state does not count lawsuits when they are first filed, but its latest count of completed cases shows they appear to have peaked in 2006, at 3,811, after years of increases.

Law firms are closing or cutting medical malpractice units, turning down cases and settling cases more quickly and for less money than in the past, several South Florida attorneys said.

"The money isn't in it as much," said West Palm Beach attorney Ted Babbitt. "We used to be 75 percent [medical malpractice], now we're about 35 percent. I'm turning down people. Who's suffering for it? Obviously, the people who are hurt."

Delray Beach retiree Martha Gershon said she asked six lawyers about suing a Miami doctor over her adult daughter's stroke and severe brain damage after surgery last year.

"All of them say I have a good case, but they say they won't take it," Gershon said.

South Florida has the highest malpractice premiums in the nation and, as a result, a high number of doctors who are uninsured or who have minimal coverage. That discourages patients and lawyers from filing malpractice suits that can last for years and pay a few hundred thousand dollars.

Under a 2006 state law, if one defendant, such as an uninsured doctor, cannot pay the full award in a case, the winner can no longer collect it from co-defendants such as a hospital. Also, the Florida Supreme Court ruled last year that hospitals cannot be sued for failing to make doctors carry insurance.

Scott Schlesinger, a Fort Lauderdale attorney, said he regularly turns down cases of clear physician negligence: "I don't see a future in medical malpractice law in the state of Florida."