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I'd take that bet, Hanibal. If there was a hi-lo agreement, and it's apparantly the policy limits, the family won't be buying a new house or a gold bedpan any time soon. It can cost 250K to bring a suit like this to trial. Experts, depositions, travel, document production, video production, etc.. these costs typically come off the top. Then attorneys fees of 30-40% (Despite common misperceptions, many lawyers will reduce their fees because after working with these folks for years, you start to feel for them.) Some malpractice coverage has minimum limits in the 250-500K range, though I suspect that these limits were quite a bit higher. They will likely go through a structured settlement company that will invest what is left over and make it available for the care of the child, so that it lasts and goes to what it is intended to do, rather than a new house and cars. Yes, the lawyers get alot of money, but they invested heavily in this case, and earned it. Without them, the family would not have gotten nearly as much, even after everything is taken out.
The real bad guy here is the malpractice insurance. Given facts bad enough that the jury needed only 6 1/2 hours to award $40 million, the malpractice insurance should have tendered policy limits when the claim was made, rather than fighting it. That's the whole purpose of having insurance, right? When something bad happens, you're covered. But insurance companies make money by not paying, and this time they got burned. They probably spent as much fighting it as they wound up paying in the end, and it all could have been avoided had the adjuster made the right call.
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