Dennis Quaid testifies about limits on lawsuits

This morning, actor Dennis Quaid told Congress about the hospital mix-up that caused his newborn twins to get 1,000 times the normal dose of the blood thinner Heparin. (You may have seen the 60 Minutes special a couple months ago on the case).

Like many victims of medication errors, Quaid and his wife seek justice — through a lawsuit against drug maker Baxter Healthcare Corp.

But the case may never come to a courtroom.

See, Baxter says the lawsuit should be dismissed due to a federal pre-emption - since the FDA approved the packaging on the drug. (The wrong concentration, in a virtually identical bottle to the right one, was mistakenly given to the Quaid twins.)

“Like many Americans, I believed that a big problem in our country was frivolous lawsuits,” Quaid testified. “But now I know that the courts are often the only path to justice.”

Quaid said that if all lawsuits are pre-empted, “it will basically make us uninformed and uncompensated lab rats.”

The larger issue at stake is whether the consumers’ rights to sue under state law should be blocked because of a federal regulation. It’s an issue that will come before the Supreme Court later this year in a case from Vermont.

According to an AP story:

Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

Decried by consumer advocates and embraced by industry, the agencies’ use of the government’s rule-making authority represents the administration’s final act in a long-standing drive to shield companies from lawsuits.

Many of the regulations that limit lawsuits come by way of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

What’s your take - do you agree with the consumer advocates, or do you think there needs to be a limit?