Doctors can be held liable for negligence even when the odds were against a patient's survival in the first place, Massachusetts' highest court has ruled. The decision marks the first time the state's Supreme Judicial Court recognized "loss of chance" and opens the doors for more plaintiffs to seek damages.

Insurance companies spend $1.5 billion a year on the treatment of preventable medical errors that occur during or after surgery, according to a study by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

New York has overhauled its physician-oversight law, giving the state medical board more power, consumers more information, and doctors less confidentiality.

An Arizona law that set qualifications for expert witnesses is unconstitutional, the state court of appeals has decided.

A West Virginia surgeon will get less than half the $25 million a jury awarded him in a defamation case earlier this year.

Inadequate hospital-discharge procedures can create a minefield of malpractice risks, as outlined in a recent report from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority (PPSA).

North Carolina will soon make physicians' malpractice histories accessible to the general public by posting them online, as more than a dozen states already do.

Limits on awards for noneconomic damages are unconstitutional, a Georgia judge has ruled.

Patients who want to sue a doctor in Tennessee will first have to get a medical expert to certify that their charges have merit under a new state law.

A negligence lawyer's gaffe has a New York urologist breathing easier these days. He's off the hook in a malpractice suit while the attorney is being sued.