It is not unusual for a medical malpractice lawsuit to involve a host of defendants. A quick glance at the med mal docket in just about any venue bears this out. Not uncommonly these cases will include hospitals, physicians, nurses, other health care professionals, and their various practice affiliations. There may be a number of reasons for this phenomenon. Certainly the extent of the damages sought in these cases might be one factor—more defendants typically mean more financial accountability. But strategic considerations may also play a role: the comparative ease of securing discovery from party-defendants as opposed to non-parties, or the potential for exploiting finger-pointing among discordant defendants. Whatever the cause or causes, single-party medical malpractice lawsuits have become rare enough that the very concept almost seems quaint.

Another examination of that docket reveals something else again: common legal representation shared by many of the defendants. The reasons for this are understandable enough. In the first place, there are not many insurance carriers that provide physicians malpractice coverage in New York. Presently only five insurers are authorized to provide the coverage, and of these, three have the lion’s share of the market. Some defendants will inevitably find themselves with common insurers, or perhaps have common coverage under a single policy through their employment or practice affiliation. And the insurer, confronted with defense obligations to many parties in one lawsuit, may find the economic and strategic value of a common legal defense to be an appealing option.