Can a doctor charge upfront for a procedure, then not complete it without the patient to pay for another procedure? Suppose that a person paid $18k for a procedure to remove teeth and replace with dentures. After the extraction and sizing the dentures - the dentist told her that the dentist can't complete the first procedure without a 2nd procedure that costs $9k. They can't fit the new dentures without removing more teeth. is that legal? Has ther patient any claim against the dentist.
It is legal for a doctor to charge for each procedure that they perform, so if it is necessary to remove more teeth, the doctor can charge for that additional removal. A patient may not fully understand what the scope of their contract with the dentist is, thus one might think that they have paid $18K for a &quot;complete solution&quot;, irrespective of what has to be done. More likely, the contract is for specific work, and if more work needs to be done, more money has to be paid. When a doctor (mechanic, contractor, lawyer...) gives you a ballpark figure for likely costs given their understanding of the work probably required – based on current knowledge – you should understand that as an estimate, which may be inaccurate given new discoveries. Of course, if a person knowingly and deliberately misrepresents the scope of work required, in order to persuade the customer to sign on with their service, that is probably legally actionable. If you can prove that the doctor actually knew that the scope of work was greater than what he claimed, you could have a legal case. Otherwise, you have the option of taking your business elsewhere, or paying the additional charges.
If the landlord gave you a key, and you can not give it back to him he has every right to charge you for correcting the oversight. I put to you that if you can't provide it back to him, he can't be certain that it has not fallen into the wrong hands, and he would be prudent to change the lock - and indeed, he may not even have another copy of the key in which case he really does not have a lot of alternatives. If you look at the section on "Claims for Damages or Loss" pdf there is a section B - Damage which confirms that Loss includes less tangible impacts including "loss of a service or facility provided under the tenancy agreement" Section C of the same document goes on to assert that "The purpose of compensation is to put the person who suffered the damage or loss in the same position as if the damage or loss had not occurred". There is arguably a question of the amount of loss suffered, and they can't sting you for punitive damages, but they can charge you a reasonable amount to get a new key cut (or possibly to replace the lock) - but that was not your question, and would probably arise if the amount he charges was unreasonable in the circumstance. Depending on if he has already taken action - and if not, how much the bill would be - promptly remedying the breach by finding and returning the key or equivalent action might save you some money.
Late to the party, but I'll answer anyways. In general, providers have a lot of wiggle room when sharing information with parents, on condition that the patient hasn't explicitly objected despite having opportunity to do so. HIPAA allows the provider to make a judgment call on whether such information can be shared without explicit consent: Quoting Title 45 § 164.510 : (i) Obtains the individual's agreement; (ii) Provides the individual with the opportunity to object to the disclosure, and the individual does not express an objection; or (iii) Reasonably infers from the circumstances, based the exercise of professional judgment, that the individual does not object to the disclosure. HHS does discuss disclosure to family members in their FAQ : A covered entity is permitted to share information with a family member or other person involved in an individual’s care or payment for care as long as the individual does not object. A parent of a child who has just turned 18 is likely still somewhat involved in the child's care, so, absent either an objection or a reason to believe the child would object if asked, sharing is probably not a violation.
Technically the signage implied an agreement, and allowed you to infer one. But yes, I think that management could not legally insist on more than the posted price, whether for a lost ticket, or for a particular duration. (Unless the sign included "prices subject to change without notice" or something of the sort.) As a practical matter, challenge this is going to be a pain. The employees on the spot probably have no authority to vary the price merely because the amount programmed into the register differs from the posted sign. At least they will claim not to have such authority. And they won't release the car without being paid the $80 that they will insist is the proper price. To challenge this, a person would probably have to pay under protest, and then sue for a refund, I would hope in a small claims court. Most people will not go to that trouble for $10, which perhaps the management counts on. Publicity might be more effective.
are they legally allowed to make me to pay for it now? Unfortunately, yes. Contract law entitles them to charge you that amount only because --as it appears from your inquiry-- you signed the contract with (or despite) your awareness of that clause. Perhaps from other terms in your contract you might have the possibility to overcome that liability. For instance, apropos of the fact that you possessed the requisite knowledge beforehand, whether the company intentionally misled you into thinking that you would gain any valuable knowledge from the training (other than the very particular way the company wants certain tasks to be performed). However, that is hard to assess without knowing more details of your situation.
Can individuals spend money acquired in settlements that include an NDA? is the party that receives the payment allowed to actually use it? Yes. Payment of a substantial sum is oftentimes the main or only incentive for the injured party to bind himself in an NDA. A prohibition to spend that money would de facto nullify the benefit without which the party would have declined the NDA. Sandman isn't otherwise wealthy, if he suddenly buys a Lamborghini or a private jet, that money must have come from CNN. So doesn't this violate his NDA? No, typically it does not. Depending on (1) who the parties are, and (2) the hitherto divulged details of the controversy, the public might infer anyway --and with reasonable certainty-- who must have paid a substantial sum to settle the dispute. Thus, plaintiff Sandmann's [hypothetical] purchase of luxurious items would not really provide the public with new information. Similarly, if instead of buying luxurious items the indemnified person spends that money on rather necessary expenses (be it medical, property &amp; casualty, etc.) ensuing from the injury, a prohibition to spend the money would lead to another absurdity: That of perpetuating or worsening the harm inflicted to the plaintiff who couldn't otherwise afford medical treatment, new living arrangements, or repairs/replacement of property, accordingly. If the payer thinks it is important enough, perhaps the NDA could include terms requiring the payee to use some extent of discretion as to the pace of spending the money. However, such need on the payer's part seems rare, and the injured person is likelier to decline the NDA altogether if the clauses for management of the compensation are unreasonable. What counts as disclosure with regards to Non-Disclosure Agreements? Any revelation, by the parties, that contravenes the terms and purpose of the NDA in that it would give non-parties information which cannot be ascertained from prior and/or independent publications and filings. That is otherwise hard to answer because it totally depends on the terms --and boilerplate-- of each NDA.
Under the America Invents Act of 2012 nothing would happen unless someone - the original inventor or any third party - filed for an Inter Partes Review. The cost of filing to try to get an IPR going is $15,500. If the published information about the original inventor's work passed some hurdle, an IPR can be instituted by the USPTO. It is a trial-light proceeding that is estimated to cost at least $100,000. Any claims that are found invalid are invalid for everyone (pending any appeals). The AIA did introduce a new "feature" that could help you hypothetical first inventor to stay in business if he/she was actually producing and selling the thing. It is called "prior user rights" and lets you keep making what ever you were making at the location you are making them at. It is not automatic. Rather it is a defense in an infringement suit. Even before the AIA there was no such thing as "have the patent canceled". The issue of the first inventor's prior art would come up at a patent infringement lawsuit.
Based solely on what you've described, what the lawyer did is inappropriate if, in fact, it occurred without any prior permissions. However, since you are not the actual client, it may be that you lack pertinent info, because this would be exceedingly rare behavior. Lawyers are allowed to make procedural and "expert"/professional decisions about your case without your consent, and do so all the time. As a general rule: we decide who to depose, what expert(s) are necessary to prove your claim, what questions to ask in discovery, what to say and when to say it when attempting to settle, and what witnesses to call vs. not to call at panel or trial. All of that is in the purview of the attorney's general discretion and work product. However, attorneys cannot diminish, amend, or settle your claim without your permission, unless you've signed a limited representation agreement and/or a prior authorization to do these things with a waiver of consultation on issues relating to settlement. (It is not uncommon for a client to say, "My bottom line is X; hence, you have my permission to settle the case for anything over that amount.") A client may also, subsequently, give verbal consent, saying things like "just do your best and get what you can". Contingency and Total Award Strategies Since you aren't the one having entered into the contract, you may not be privy to the existence of these types of contingencies. Agreements like this are very common when an attorney takes a weaker med mal claim. It may be that the lawyer will only take the case to the extent that they will try to settle, and may even file the case, with the understanding that they will never try the case. It is a way to try to get you as much as possible when all facts come to light, without agreeing to the expense of a trial. This happens a lot. In these situations, when you are trying to settle a claim that ends up being much less valuable than the attorney thought when he took the case, the insurance carrier will often say, "We will pay X on the claim if Doctor Doe is dismissed out," or something like that. Often lawyers intentionally over-file, in hopes there are two carriers (the more insurance the more money to make you go away) that they can try to settle with. When it turns out both docs are covered under one insurance carrier, then the weaker claim will often get dismissed out. It is a strategic decision to add them, and to dismiss them &ndash; and this is very common. Proving malpractice against one doctor is hard enough; trying to prove that you are the victim of double malpractice, back to back, is nearly impossible. All of that said, even if a client has entered into these types of limited or decisional authority-granting agreements, the lawyer still has a duty to keep the client apprised of what's going on. The client may decide later they don't like how little the attorney is stating the claim is worth (despite being forewarned this may happen, it happens all the time that when it actually occurs the client is not happy). In that case, they have the right to find a new lawyer, but that will be very difficult to do for a few reasons: (1) the original attorney is entitled to get paid for the work done under a theory known as “quantum meruit,” so other attorneys will be hesitant to get involved; (2) they will put a lien on any recovery for the amount of time and expenses, to be paid from any settlements or awards (and they get paid first, before the client or the new lawyer); (3) if a client gets angry and says they want to just drop the case rather than have the lawyer make more than the client, even after a year or more of work, all of the costs will still be owed by the client; (4) the potential new attorney will call the one who has the case and ask about whether the client has unreasonable expectations, if their case has any value, etc. Keep mind, if an attorney is doing the things you've described, they probably would suffer no love loss if the case went away. Malpractice in Context It very often happens, especially in medical malpractice cases, that a client will come in and describe the case one way, and then when the medical records arrive and the attorney and/or the paralegal/nurse-para review them, and all the facts get flushed out, it turns out things occurred a bit (or a lot) differently than the client described or recalled in the first place. This is typically not a matter, 99% of the time, of the client lying to the attorney, but rather it is merely the phenomenon of memories being based on their perception of the events/their care, rather than verifiable fact and established medical standards. (This is why eye-witness testimony is so notably unreliable: 10 people can witness the same event and there will inevitably be 10 different descriptions.) One thing all clients should be told by their lawyer (and you should only hire an experienced medical malpractice lawyer for these cases) is that bad outcomes do not equal negligence. Lay people often think that if something bad occurred while under the care of a doctor, this is the case, but it is not the measure of malpractice. Sometimes, even when the doctor does everything according to their specialty/industry standard, bad outcomes happen. Malpractice/negligence only occurs when they have deviated from this standard of care - outcome notwithstanding. The inverse is also true, when it comes to a bad outcome. The doctor may have breached the standard of care, but this cannot be determined by the patient - the law requires expert testimony to establish this. Sometimes bad outcomes are just the risk of the procedure. This is why patients sign (but rarely read) the informed consent forms, that describe in detail, and state the patient is aware, of all the potential bad outcomes that may occur during the procedure. Negligence, or a "breach of the standard of care" occurs when the typical physician (not the best expert in the world, just the normal, typical doctor in that field) would have found the actions to be unreasonable and never acceptable given the totality of the circumstances. Once you prove that, you then still need to prove that is what caused your damages (not the disease, or the ailment itself). Unfortunately, even with the best physicians, bad outcomes happen all the time. It is very common, to the point of being almost predictable, that a medical malpractice claim's value will depart from the original ballpark estimate of value that an attorney tries to "best guess" at the outset. When your attorney tries to value a case, they roughly estimate your "special damages", which consists of medical bills, lost income, lost earning capacity, and other quantifiable sums. Then, they must try to assess the market rate award for pain and suffering for the type injury you've sustained. This is only guesswork, based on jury verdict reports, reported settlements, and the jurisdictional leanings toward large or small verdicts (comparatively). As the case evolves, as facts come to lights, as experts are consulted - this is when these estimates can largely deviate from the original guesstimate based on very limited information. Risks of Contingency Representation At any rate, when a lawyer takes a case on contingency (when they agreed to get paid only if they recover, and not until they recover, aside from out of pocket expenses), they do this because they've relied on the client's account of what happened, as well as their initial assessment of the records, usually prior to hiring an expert (if they even intended to hire one because they agreed to take the case all the way through trial). You must understand that attorneys don't like when a case loses value any more than the client; in fact, probably less as they are the ones who've invested often hundreds of hours in the case at that point. This is how they make their money. Thirty-three percent of a small amount is not the same as that of a large amount. And many, many hours go into these cases. An attorney can make far more than their hourly rate on a great case, but this is balanced by making far, far less on cases whose values plummet as facts come to light. When a case appears to lost much of it's initially estimated value, the attorney will still try to maximize recovery; however, it may not seem that way to the client because after they take their third, and then recoup their expenses (which is on top of the third and is the responsibility of the client win-or-lose), clients can end up with almost nothing. This is because the expense of these cases is enormous and it is the problem with that area of law and the system in general. It is not uncommon for a medical malpractice case to cost, out of pocket, $200,000 or more! This is why so few people are able to get a lawyer to take these cases, and often when they do, it's on the very limited basis I described. Med Malpractice Primer Med Mal cases are some of the hardest cases to win and they are by far some of the most expensive cases to try. This in not accidental. Depending on the state you live in, tort reform (a legislative effort to limit the amount of medical malpractice claims filed and tried overall, as well as limiting their total recovery) can range from limits on damages, to very short windows for statute of limitations, to the requirements (like where I practice) where you must literally try the case twice &ndash; once before a med mal screening panel, who hears all your witnesses just as a jury does, and then decides whether the case should (and in some cases can) go forward. In some states (I happen to practice in one) the findings are admissible in court (not the evidence but the finding). So, if the MMPT screening panel finds the doctor was not negligent, or was, but the damages were within the standard disclosed potential outcomes, so there was no causation, or myriad other things, if you decide (or in some states, if you even still get to go to court) the defense gets to say to the jury that the legislatively enacted Med Mal Pre-trial screening panel found X (no negligence, causation, or damages &ndash; or all three). These panels are usually comprised of a lawyer (75% defense lawyers) or a judge, and two doctors who are biased against these types of cases in the first place). Also, if your expert gets torn apart on an issue during panel phase, anything they admit can be used against them in the trial. I say all this to help you understand that these cases are made, by the legislature, to be very hard to even find a lawyer to take, very hard to win, and exceedingly expensive to litigate. This is based on the (fallacious) theory that medical malpractice claims should be limited to the most serious claims because this litigation is so costly, and so impactful on the rates all citizens pay for insurance, that the legislature has seen fit to make them very difficult to prosecute, thereby weeding out weak claims. Bottom Line If the client truly feels their lawyer did something they did not have permission (either explicitly in writing, or verbally) to do, they need to talk to the attorney, explain their discomfort with the situation, and figure out why it occurred and if it was truly in the best interest of the case and the client. If the lawyer cannot adequately answer those questions, they should get a second opinion. The client can demand that anything the attorney did be undone, if it was the type of thing that is in the client's control. One would need to see the engagement letter and retention agreement, and also be privy to the conversations. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for a client to say they understand what the lawyer is proposing when they don't. If you find that's the case, you may have them ask that all determinations be put in writing, with an explanation as to why.