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New Hampshire med-mal screening panels have failed, critics say.

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New Hampshire's mandatory medical malpractice screening panel system is having the opposite of its intended effect--bringing cases to a standstill and doubling their costs, critics say. The panels are meant to weed out non-meritorious claims and encourage early resolution.

According to the New Hampshire Superior Court, which administers the panels, only 12 cases have been screened since the law establishing the panels was enacted in 2005. In that time, at least 136 cases have been filed.

In a September letter to the state's House Judiciary Committee chair, Superior Court Chief Justice Robert Lynn wrote that although it is too early to make definitive conclusions about the panels' effectiveness, "insofar as one of the purposes of this legislation was to provide a 'quick and easy' method for resolving medical injury cases, I have reservations about whether the legislation will accomplish this goal."

The statute says that panel hearings should be held within six months of the date a case is filed. Lynn noted that...

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