Malpractice Cases Spike ... for Pets

[meow2u3]

LOS ANGELES, July 29 — When attorney Robert Newman lectures at veterinarians' conventions, he brings along his chihuahua, Ruben.

Newman begins his talk by telling the audience that he paid $23 for Ruben at an animal shelter. Then the little dog trots on stage. Ruben sits, speaks, plays dead, rolls over, gives Newman a high-five.

"Then I pick him up and I ask, 'How many of you believe that if I bring Ruben to you and you do something wrong that results in his death and you give me $23, that you've made me whole? Raise your hands,' " says Newman.

But there's always silence and no one raises their hands, says the attorney. "They know that a fair-market value approach to a companion animal is a joke, an insult."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/Business/CSM_fido_030729.html

[Heddi]

1. A friend of mine had a dog

that had gotten sick, and she took it to the vet.

vet said it had a lower-intestine blockage, did the surgery, and charged her $700.

2 weeks later the dog was sick. So the vet says "oh well the whole blockage isn't out" and charged her another $700.

Meanwhile, while inside the dog, the dr said they'd found a tumor, removed it, and charged her $1000 for the surgery. When my friend found out that not only did they NOT notify her of the tumor, they didn't ask her if she wanted it removed from the dog. There was no indication it was cancerous or the source of her problems.

She asked for the tumour so that she could get it biopsied by another vet, and the vet said "oh we threw it out".

So my friend took her dog to another vet who said he could see absolutely no evidence that there was ever a tumour inside the dog that was removed (i.e. no scar tissue, etc), and that there never was any intestial surgery done because there were no stiches on the intestine.

The Doctor charged her $2400 to cut the dog open and sew it back up. The second vet said that the state the stiches were in looked as if the dog wasn't even opened up the second time because of the amount of healing that had taken place.

Friend tried to sue the Dr, but was unsuccessful because of the terribly lacking 'malpractice' laws for vets.

[Francis]

2. That sounds like fraud n/t