As promised, the Wisconsin Medical Society has filed a lawsuit against the state to prevent the withdrawal of $200 million from the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund for state budget purposes.

The Medical Society announced the legal action related to the fund Monday. For weeks, it has promised to take legal action if the state's biennial budget included a raid on the fund. The lawsuit was filed in Dane County Circuit Court Monday.

"This is just the first step in what may very well be a lengthy process in the courts," said Tom Pyper, of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudeck S.C., who is representing the Society. "Judicial timelines are very difficult to predict. The Society is prepared to exhaust every legal option in defending injured patients and families and Society health care providers from what it believes to be an illegal taking."

Doyle signed the state budget Oct. 26.

Wisconsin Medical Society president Dr. Clarence Chou has said that the fund is intended for injured patients and their families, not for "one-time fiscal band-aids."

"There is no doubt that the fund raid will make it more difficult to recruit and retain high quality physicians when the practice climate in Wisconsin is unstable," Chou said in a statement Monday.

Named in the complaint are Sean Dilweg, Commissioner of Insurance; Michael Morgan, secretary of Department of Administration; and Dawn Marie Sass, state treasurer.

The suit asserts eight causes of action, including the seeking of a permanent injunction against transferring money from the Fund "because the Act is unconstitutional or otherwise invalid or unenforceable...." The complaint further states that this transfer of money "constitutes an unlawful tax and is, accordingly, invalid and void...."

Pyper defended the state Employee Trust Funds Board before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1997, when the court deemed it was illegal for the government to take from the state pension fund.

The fund was created in 1975 by the state Legislature when few insurance companies were offering adequate medical liability policies. Raids on the fund were also proposed in 2003-2005 and 2005-2007 budgets but were removed before the budget was passed.

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