PENN. COURT SEEKS CLAIMS DATA:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chief justice wants local court officials across the state to report the number of medical malpractice claims filed in the past four years and monitor new cases as they come in. The request came in a letter sent to judges in the state’s 60 judicial districts on behalf of Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy. The letter was in response to a reform proposal Gov. Ed Rendell made last year. “This is a step in the process of gathering as much information as we can that’s out there so that a thoughtful and careful analysis can be done,” said Art Heinz, spokesman for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. Adams County notary Patricia Funt, whose office handled about 1,300 new lawsuits last year, said the chore of separating the med-mal lawsuits from other litigation will have to be done by hand. Doctors’ groups have complained that skyrocketing insurance rates are forcing them to leave the state, and have lobbied aggressively for reforms that would lessen their insurance burden. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association predicted that the data collection effort will show that in about half of the state’s 67 counties, med-mal cases are virtually nonexistent. Sam Marshall, president of the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, whose members include large med-mal insurers, said he was concerned that the collected information could hamper efforts to stabilize the state’s malpractice insurance marketplace.