The doctor that delivered my middle child said he had to deliver three babies a week just to cover insurance, and he had never had a case against him in his decades of practice.
Yup, obstetrics is a really nasty one. The problem is in many cases it's impossible for the doctor to prove he didn't harm the baby, the jury sees a baby that needs a lot of care and they see deep pockets.
And then you get stuff like the local case the lawyers were using as a poster boy for supposedly blaming the insurance companies. Baby had serious problems. Trial #1, 90% fault to the mother, IIRC 10% to the birthing center (which was no longer in existence.) By state law she couldn't collect because she was more than 50% at fault. Trial #2, same case, refiled in the name of the baby. 90%/5%/5% to one doctor who saw her once several hours before delivery. The whole $6 million judgment landed on him and last I heard that was being litigated over sticking him with the whole bill.
Hey, both juries agreed she was the problem. But there's no way to prove the others were blameless.
I've also seen this more directly: mock jury. Their screening questions weren't adequate--I knew how things would actually play out. Claim for IIRC ~150k, defense presents a smoking gun, but I don't think they went far enough on arguing the implications of it. We "settled" (didn't have to be unanimous) on ~30k, giving her a fifth of what she was asking for--except that doesn't make the medical bills for running up the tab go away. Lawyer is going to get his percent, docs will get the rest, she will see nothing. I kept quiet about this part as I knew it was information their screening questions missed.
