Verdict for senator's wife raises charges of hypocrisy

By BEN WHITE

The Washington Post

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has spent a good bit of time railing against greedy trial lawyers and has sponsored several pieces of legislation intended to limit awards in medical malpractice lawsuits - -- including a 1994 bill that would have capped noneconomic damages at $250,000.

The senator's wife, however, recently won a medical malpractice lawsuit against her chiropractor. The amount of Mary Santorum's award? $350,000.

Democrats wasted little time sending up indignant cries of hypocrisy.

"If you don't think someone who ran a race vilifying trial lawyers, who would impose $250,000 caps on noneconomic damages and has supported the rights of HMOs over the rights of patients, and then uses a trial lawyer to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in noneconomic damages in a malpractice suit is hypocritical, then Rick Santorum's your guy," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman David DiMartino told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

Santorum, a conservative freshman who came to Washington in the GOP wave of 1994, is considered one the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents. Several Democrats, including Rep. Ron Klink, Pa., and former Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinksy, have lined up for the chance to take him on.

So how, exactly, does Santorum square his wife's award (she sought $500,000) with his position on tort reform? Apparently he doesn't.

Santorum spokesman Robert Traynham said the senator's wife never asked him for his opinion of the lawsuit and Santorum never offered it. "The senator and his wife, believe it or not, disagree on some issues," Traynham said. "This is a case between her and her attorney and her chiropractor. It has nothing to do with Senator Santorum."

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