Guam attorney says medical malpractice bill favorable only to lawyers

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Only lawyers would come out ahead under a bill that would facilitate litigation for medical malpractice claims, a local attorney said, questioning the need to fix a system that is not broken.

“I'm telling you from my own personal experience—I am right now defending four claims brought in arbitration—the system is working,” Mitch Thompson said, testifying against Bill 82-38.

Titled "Do No Harm: The Anti-Medical Misconduct Act of 2025," Bill 82-38 would eliminate the mandatory requirement for arbitration and set up a pre-litigation mechanism for medical malpractice complaints.

“The big winners of this bill are the lawyers,” said Thompson, a partner at  Thompson Thompson & Alcantara law offices.

At Monday’s public hearing, Thompson provided legal perspectives on Sen. William Parkinson’s bill, arguing against its premises.

“The notion that there's some huge number of unserved claims out there, I think, is based on unverified comments on the internet,” said Thompson, as partner at  Thompson Thompson & Alcantara, P.C.

“I'm defending four cases right now, alleging professional malpractice. In all of them, we’ve reached agreements with the plaintiffs’ counsel on how to proceed under arbitration.”

Under the current system, parties are required to arbitrate claims before elevating the case to courts.

“Arbitration would no longer be a precondition to filing a lawsuit. In place of the old system, Bill 82-38 establishes a pre-litigation screening process to be handled by our illustrious Guam Superior Court," Parkinson said.

 "Rather than a panel of private arbiters, a judge would conduct an early review of the evidence in each malpractice case,” he added,

Noting that the proposed new process is patterned after the systems adopted in some U.S. jurisdictions, Parkinson claimed the bill, if enacted into law, would streamline the process and cut the costs otherwise incurred by claimants.

 “If you’re poor or working class, and you can’t afford to pay for mandatory medical arbitration up front, you cannot even begin to seek justice for medical negligence on Guam. That needs to change,” he said.

Countering the senator’s grounds, Thompson cited a “substantive problem” with the bill’s cost assumptions.

“Bill 82 states that the cost of pursuing medical claims is prohibitive. Right now, it's not that different from going to court. Whether an arbitration or in court, it is expensive,” he said.

Thompson argued that the bill would not necessarily eliminate legal expenses, nor would it suddenly make legal services accessible and affordable.

“Let's look at the plaintiff’s side: typically, the plaintiff's counsel would advance the cost of the claim. They view it as an investment. They look at the claim and say, 'Well, this claim looks like we'll recover a lot of money.' So, it makes sense for the plaintiff’s counsel to advance those costs. It’s a business decision,” he said.

Seeking to straighten out “the notion that the poor people can't afford to go to arbitration," Thompson said, "well, that's not really the way it works.”

He explained the legal service hiring process: “The poor person finds a lawyer who is willing to invest the time and money to pursue the claim. That's the way it normally works, whether in arbitration or in litigation.”

Thompson suggested that the ease or difficulty of obtaining legal representation would remain the same, but in the end, the lawyers would get the good end of the stick.

“If we get rid of the arbitration system, it's going to save the plaintiff’s counsel money. So they come out ahead good,” Thompson said. “How does it benefit the defense counsel? Well, if the legislature decides to make it easier to sue health care providers, that's great for me.”

Thompson said his law firm, which represents several healthcare providers on Guam, would reap a fortune if the bill is enacted into law.

“My law partners are probably asking why I am here today, complaining about this bill that will give us a lot more business,” he said. “The thing is, I have lived on Guam for 40 years. I don't think it's a good public policy to chase away doctors to make it harder to practice.” 

Guam’s medical community came in full force Monday to oppose the bill during a public hearing held by Sen. Taitague’s committee on economic investment.

In a statement, the American Medical Center urged the legislature “to consider a more balanced path forward, one that respects both patients’ rights and the needs of a sustainable healthcare workforce.”

AMC warned that Bill 82-38 would “open the door to a flood of litigation, putting our already fragile healthcare system under even greater strain. The real cost will not be measured in courtrooms, but in longer wait times, higher premiums fewer providers and limited access to care.”

Dr. John Ray Taitano said the bill’s authors did not provide evidence that the current mandatory arbitration system is “unreasonably burdensome,” nor did they prove that the proposed measure would reduce costs, delays or improve justice.

“What it will do, however, is flood our courts with lawsuits, many of which may be driven more by contingency lawyers than legitimate malpractice,” Taitano said.

Dr. Kenny Su, Guam’s chief medical examiner, said Bill 82-38 would jeopardize the doctor-patient relationship and push medical professionals away.

“Not to mention, you need more (doctors) to review doctors. Yes, the arbitration requirement is not applied in other states. However, we also know that those states are not as bad as Guam in terms of recruiting medical professionals. So I don't understand the logic to compare Guam to other states,” said Su, a pathologist.

Mason Caldwell, a medical student at the University of Hawaii, criticized the bill as an “overly simple solution to a complex problem without an included plan to address its shortcomings.”

“When we wrote our personal statements to get into medical school, it wasn't the unique protections for medical malpractice lawsuits that inspired us to become doctors,” she said. “We just believe that our families and loved ones deserve the best health care possible.”

She noted that medical students incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and go through a grueling process, with the hope that “in the end, we will use our medical skills to serve” the Guam community.

“The physicians practicing on Guam have overcome this difficult process. And although they could have relocated to serve any number of places with more resources, higher salaries, greater opportunities to advance their careers, they choose to come to Guam and continue to choose to stay,” she said.  

Pramila Sullivan, of SOAR Physical Therapy, said the bill would discourage private investments.

“Without a private healthcare infrastructure invested, the quality of health care will slowly deteriorate as the government will not be able to replace it without further gutting the government tax revenue stream,” Sullivan said.

“At the end of the day, you will have to create a very set of condition that will force the future medical students to make hard decisions about where to set up their medical practices and I can tell you that Guam will be at the bottom of the list when they compare the legal climates.”

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