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Skilled Healthcare has leased out the operations of five Humboldt County, Calif., facilities. The maneuver means the facilities are no longer bound by an injunction to meet legally-required minimum staffing levels, but an attorney for plaintiffs in a recent class action says the new operators will be under scrutiny.

A neurosurgeon who has been sanctioned by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice has left that state, which has no limits on compensation for injured patients, to practice in Texas, where physicians’ liability is capped. But his Texas medical record shows no evidence of the more than $3 million paid to settle malpractice claims against him in Minnesota, and he is not obligated to be supervised by another surgeon as he was in Minnesota.

Steven Olsen was a bright 2-year-old when medical negligence left him profoundly brain damaged. Two decades later, his parents remain potent advocates for correcting California’s $250,000 cap on human suffering.

Washington Post/Kaiser Health News: Even though medical experts agree operating on the wrong body part should never happen, some researchers say the problem of wrong-site surgery is getting worse.

California Watch: The AG’s office has filed legal documents arguing hospitals in the state must file monthly reports on infections related to 29 types of surgeries under a 2008 state law, while the California Hospital Association says state regulators haven’t followed the process for making the rules.

The [Portland] Oregonian: Oregon hospitals have reported 10 cases in which the wrong procedure was performed, or the procedure was performed on the wrong site or on the wrong patient, in each of the last two years.

Product safety. Medical negligence. Environmental oversight. Corporate wrongdoing. The civil justice system has had a dramatic effect on our day-to-day lives, allowing ordinary people a platform to tap constitutional rights enshrined by America’s founders and battle back to hold powerful corporations accountable.