21.   Explaining the growth in malpractice suits exposes a vast gulf between lawyers for the plaintiffs in such cases and lawyers for the defense.

22.   Fearful of a malpractice suit, a doctor may err on the side of caution.

23.   Finkel says the lawyer has abused the legal system by filing six malpractice suits against him.

24.   First, it imposes arbitrary caps on financial awards from malpractices suits, thereby protecting doctors from patients who have been needlessly disfigured or worse.

25.   For these reasons, he has few admirers in the medical community, whose members often find themselves on the receiving end of his malpractice suits.

26.   He is pressing not only for a verdict but for punitive damages, which are almost never awarded in medical malpractice suits in New York state.

27.   Health maintenance organizations say they wonder how frank discussion of errors can occur as long as health care providers fear malpractice suits.

28.   His biggest risk then, of course, could be a malpractice suit.

29.   Here are malpractice suits, price wars, complaints to the Food and Drug Administration and patients so angry they are posting their stories on Web sites.

30.   In malpractice suits, lawyers are required to post cash bonds and submit expert medical testimony about the alleged malpractice before the cases can proceed.