Posted on February 22, 2017 in Criminal Defense

As a former Assistant State’s Attorney and full time criminal attorney for over 20 years, I have both prosecuted and defended hundreds of individuals who have been charged with Sex Offenses.  Many, indeed virtually all, people who are convicted with one of these offenses are required to register as a sex offender.   The statute controlling sexual offender registry is complicated and, in recent years, has been amended several times.  I have recently been retained by 3 separate clients who have had their Sexual Offender Registration Requirements retroactively changed as a result of these amendments.  One was not required to register at all as a result of his conviction but is now being told he must, and two others who have had their registration terms changed from 10 years to life.   We believe that these changes are in clear violation of the Ex post Facto Clause contained in Article 17 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.  We are filing what is called a Declaratory Judgment action in the Circuit Court in each one of these cases to request that the court issue and Order to the Department of Public Safety to remove these individuals from registry.  Here is a brief synopsis of the law:

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 Posted on February 03, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A jury in a medical malpractice case tried in federal court has awarded $14.5 million to a young boy who suffered catastrophic injuries, including cerebral palsy, during birth.  The lawsuit alleged that the healthcare providers involved negligently guided the mother through labor, prescribing a drug – Pitocin – that sped up the delivery process to a rate at which the child did not have sufficient time to recover and oxygenate between contractions.  The Plaintiffs’ position was that when the fetal heart monitor began to demonstrate that the child was being deprived of oxygen the administration of Pitocin should have been terminated.  The evidence also demonstrated that the hospital’s written rules prohibited use of Pitocin in cases where the mother is dilating, making progress in the labor process and experiencing strong contractions.

As a result of his injuries, the child is unable to walk or talk and cannot sit up without assistance.  He likely will require significant, round-the-clock care for the remainder of his life.  The award – issued after two weeks of trial and four hours of deliberation – included $3 million for past a future pain, suffering and future lost wages.  The remainder of the award was to cover future medical expenses for his lifetime of needed care.

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 Posted on January 27, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

After a five-day trial last week, a jury in Montgomery County, Maryland awarded $1 million a man who permanently lost vision in one eye following surgery.  The man went to a local eye clinic in December of 2014 with pre-existing conditions that left him at a higher risk of developing increased ocular pressure.  However, he was not prescribed any eye pressure medication.  The clinic physician diagnosed him with a detached retina and scheduled him for surgery to repair it.

The man’s medical malpractice lawyers contended that the surgery caused the pressure in the left eye to increase over the next day, leading to permanent vision loss.  He contended that he is not able to do all of the activities that he was accustomed to doing and that his enjoyment of life’s daily pursuits has been diminished.  The award included $500,000 for pain, suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress.  After the Maryland economic damages cap in medical malpractice cases is applied, the award will be reduced to $740,000.

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 Posted on January 06, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Last year, an Alabama jury awarded $10 million to the family of a young boy who suffered devastating injuries after his bacterial meningitis went undetected for too long.  Meningitis is an infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.  When caused by bacteria, the condition is referred to as bacterial meningitis.

In this case, the family of the then-three-month-old was brought to the hospital on two consecutive days with a variety of symptoms and, while he was admitted, no tests to rule out bacterial infection were performed and no antibiotics were administered.  Despite his ongoing symptoms of a bacterial infection, the hospital discharged him to the care of his parents at home.  The next morning, the family took the boy to his pediatrician who performed a lumbar puncture and confirmed that he was suffering from bacterial meningitis.  He was flown by helicopter to another hospital where he was treated and underwent several surgeries.  Despite those efforts, he suffered permanent brain injuries, hearing loss and now suffers from seizures.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

An aortic dissection is an emergent condition in which the inner most layer of the aorta (the large vessel that comes out of the heart) develops a a tear. The blood that is being pumped out of the heart into the aorta then passes through the tear, separating (dissecting) the inner most layer and the middle layer of the blood vessel and creating what is known as a “false lumen” (false passageway for the blood to travel). As the pressure of the blood inside this false lumen gets to be too much, the blood-filled channel will rupture through the outside wall, resulting in a catastrophic loss of blood and ultimately death. As a result, doctors are trained to recognize the hallmark signs and symptoms of a developing aortic dissection and timely treat it before it ruptures. Like most other severe processes, if an aortic dissection is diagnosed early and treated promptly, the chance of survival great improves. Patients who have chronic hypertension (high blood pressure), narrow aortas or atherosclerotic arteries (hardening of arteries) are considered to be at a higher risk of developing an aortic dissection than others.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As the United States’ population continues to age, more and more people are requiring what are called total hip arthroplasties (THA) or total knee arthroplasties (TKA). In short, total hip replacements or total knee replacements. What many people do not realize is that the most dangerous part about these procedures is not the surgeries themselves, but the several days and weeks thereafter, when many of these patients carry a significant risk of developing a blood clot or pulmonary embolism that could seriously harm or kill them. As a result, these patient’s physicians must carefully tailor what are known as anti-coagulation regimens for each patient so as to effectively minimize the risk that their patients will develop a blood clot or pulmonary embolism. So how do they do it? First some background.

Normally, when an injury or surgical procedure causes bleeding to occur, the body sends out a signal that causes the blood to clot at that site. Blood clots typically form on the insides of someone’s blood vessels in one of two locations: the hips (called a proximal clot) or the deep veins of the calves (called a distal clot or deep vein thrombosis) (DVT). Patients who undergo orthopedic procedures on the knees, hips and spine are generally known to have an increased risk of developing a blood clot due to the immobility associated with these procedures and rehabilitation process. If one of these blood clots breaks off and travels to the lungs, it can lodge in the branches of the lungs, causing shortness of breath, a lack of oxygen to the brain, strokes, and even death. A blood clots that breaks off and travel to the lungs are known as pulmonary embolism, or PE for short.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Several weeks ago, a Charlotte County, Florida jury returned a $23 million dollar verdict against Peace River Regional Medical Center and Michael Coffey, M.D. in a medical malpractice case arising out of a baby girl who was born with a severe brain injury. According to the Complaint that was filed in this matter, in August 2010, the girl’s mother presented to the hospital multiple times during her pregnancy with classic signs of a troubled pregnancy – signs that included high blood pressure, high levels of protein in her blood and decreased fetal movement. Despite these warnings signs, the mother did not receive the necessary care and treatment she required. According to the expert obstetricians who testified on behalf of the Plaintiff, these findings required the Defendant health care providers to constantly monitor the health and well-being of the pregnancy, administer steroids designed to prevent a premature delivery. Because these treatments were not provided, Plaintiff’s experts alleged that the girl was born nearly 2 months premature. Babies that are born prematurely often experience severe pulmonary (lung) or brain injuries because those organs have not had the proper amount of time to fully develop and/or mature. In particular, the most important time period for the development and maturation of a baby’s lungs is between 27 weeks gestation and 37 weeks gestation. Babies that are born without the benefit of this lung maturation often are unable to breathe on their own and/or suffer injuries to their brain and/or other organs because an insufficient amount of oxygen is able to reach those organs. In the present case, the Plaintiff experienced a catastrophic brain injury around the time of her birth, an injury that occurred as the result of deprivation of suitable amounts of oxygen being delivered to the brain. She required hospitalization for the first 4 months of her life and her injuries are permanent. As a result of her injuries, the baby girl (who is four years of age now) must be fed through a feeding tube and must receive constant (24 hour) monitoring for strokes. The jury determined that the doctor was 70% at fault and the hospital was 30% at fault.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center recently reported that it paid $5.25 million to settle out of court a medical negligence claim brought by the parents of a brain-damaged baby that had been delivered in 2006. According to the Complaint, the child’s mother was admitted to the hospital at approximately 3:20 p.m.on April 28, 2006. She was noted to be in the early stages of labor. Her obstetrician, Walter B. Hull, M.D., failed to deliver her son until approximately 5:10 a.m. the following morning. During the course of the labor, Dr. Hull administered the drug Pitocin to the mother. Pitocin is a medication that increases the frequency and intensity of uterine contractions, essentially inducing delivery of the baby. The medication is given through an IV and the dosage is regulated by a pump. Whenever Pitocin is used, it is understood that the well-being of both the mother and the fetus must be monitored carefully. Pitocin is the synthetic brand name of the labor hormone, Oxytocin. It is well known, however, that one of the side effects of Pitocin is that it decreases the supply of blood and oxygen to the baby. Accordingly, when Pitocin is administered, it is important to monitor the baby carefully for changes in its condition. Moreover, delivery must occur within a certain amount of time so as to avoid the likelihood of injury to the baby. In short, if the labor is stalled, health care providers should intervene to prevent the mother and/or baby from developing an infection and/or sepsis.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A St. Louis, Missouri man and his wife were awarded $6.4 million by a jury as the result of a preventable stroke that the man suffered in 2007. In early 1996, the man had been diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, a heart condition in which one of the heart’s valves does not tightly close, resulting in the blood being able to flow backwards into the heart – a dangerous event. In 2001, the man’s primary care physician ordered an echocardiogram *(a test that uses wound waves to create a moving picture of the heart, images which are much more detailed than x-rays and which require no radiation exposure) which confirmed the existence of the condition. Sadly, after 2001, the primary care physician never again ordered any follow-up echocardiograms and/or referred the man to a cardiologist as the standard of care required.

In April 2007, the plaintiff suddenly began complaining of fatigue, abdominal pain and loss of appetite, classic signs and symptoms of mitral valve prolapse. The primary care physician, once again, failed to refer the man to a cardiologist or order any tests to examine his heart. The following month, May 2007, the plaintiff’s wife called the primary care physician and inquired if her husband should be admitted to the hospital for evaluation but the doctor said he should not. In June 2007, the plaintiff suffered a stroke caused by a bacterial infection on his heart valve. The stroke resulted in the man’s inability to use much of his right side, difficulty processing things mentally, an inability to process words and lost short-term memory. He also has been unable to work since the stroke, thereby incurring significant medical expenses and loss of earnings, not to mention the pain, suffering and emotional distress from which he suffers on a daily basis.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Perhaps the most pivotal components of medical malpractice lawsuit are the depositions of the expert witnesses. When trying to determine how the defendant’s conduct matched up with standards of care, attorneys on both side offer up medical experts to explain their position. The testimony of those experts is therefore crucial in getting to the crux of the disagreement.The back-and-forth in those depositions often determine the outcome of the legal matter.

Probe Following Deposition

For example, several years ago The Washington Times recently shared a story on one deposition that is making headlines not for the medical malpractice case for which it was taken but for what the defense’s medical expert admitted during questioning. The underlying case involved claims by a patient that she was burned by a surgical solution during an operation at the Washington Hospital Center several years ago. The defense team offered a surgeon as an expert witness in the case to rebut the charges. During the surgeon’s deposition he made some downright startling claims. In trying to explain that the surgical solution in question rarely ignites he said:

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