Senator Mullin Concerned Defense Dept. Is Ignoring New Medical Malpractice Law

Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin declared Wednesday he plans to hold the Department of Defense accountable for what he calls an ‘egregious’ failure to follow the spirit of a law he helped pass in 2019 to better protect soldiers from poor medical care.

The SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act was passed as part of the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and created a narrow exception to the so-called Feres Doctrine, which generally holds that the United States Government can’t be held liable for injuries to active duty members of the military. Under the law, service members can now sue the government for medical malpractice, provided the care is provided at a hospital and not by a medic in the field.

But three years in, Sen. Mullin said the law is not working as intended.

“The fox is guarding the henhouse and changes have to be made,” Sen. Mullin (R-OK) said at a news conference at the Capitol Wednesday morning.

Mullin said, of 155 malpractice claims that have been filed since the law took effect, the Department of Defense has approved just one, while denying 140, including the claim filed by the bill’s namesake, now-Master Sgt. Richard Stayskal,

“[It] just shows you the blatant arrogance that [DoD] has, and I took it as a slap across the face.”

“I was hopeful for the outcome to be different,” but Stayskal said he's not surprised. He said the same disregard his military doctors displayed in missing his stage four lung cancer diagnosis in 2017, the DoD is now showing for the new law.

“And I think it’s pretty blatant that DoD just feels like they can do whatever they want,” Stayskal said in an interview following the news conference.

“They give everything for us, everything,” said Susie Way, whose son Jordan, a Navy corpsman, died in 2017, within 72 hours of having routine shoulder surgery, a clear case of malpractice, she believes.

She and her daughter Jennifer, Jordan’s sister, stood at the press conference holding large photos of Jordan, wanting to make the point that the government is not keeping its end of the deal with those who volunteer to serve.

“Shouldn’t they be allowed to have a standard of care – accountability? I mean, it’s just… it’s mind blowing,” said Way.

Like Stayskal’s, the Way’s malpractice claim was denied, along with the claims of nearly every other claimant.

“I’m not talking about, like, someone who has a scar from plastic surgery, I’m talking about either stage four or dead,” said Natalie Khawam, an attorney who represents Stayskal, the Way family, and most of the others trying to get justice from the Department of Defense.

Khawam was the only attorney who was willing to take Stayskal’s case when he was first exploring a malpractice lawsuit.

She played a lead role in creating a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers – including then Congressman Mullin – to get a bill through Congress. But she says, as hard as they worked to change the law, it now seems as if nothing has changed.

“It seems like it’s a sham process,” Khawam said in an interview Wednesday, “they’re not providing names of the doctors that are reviewing these claims, they’re not providing any information, so there’s no transparency and there’s no accountability.”

A request for a comment from the Pentagon has so far not been answered.