Posted on August 05, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A bench trial in which the judge – and not a jury – decides the case, recently resulted in a $4.25 million verdict to a man whose undiagnosed condition left him paralyzed. The man presented to a local clinic after being injured at work. At that time, healthcare professionals administered a shot, issued him a prescription for pain medication and authorized him to return to work. Shortly thereafter, his pain worsened to the point that he could hardly walk. He went back to the clinic where he was issued another prescription for pain medication and sent back to work.

He subsequently presented to the emergency room where it was determined that he was suffering from Cauda Equina Syndrome, a surgical emergency in which something is compressing the spinal nerve roots. If not treated immediately, the condition can lead to incontinence and paralysis. The man now is permanently paralyzed. The lawsuit alleged that the healthcare providers at the clinic failed to order the testing that was warranted by the man’s symptoms, which would have resulted in an earlier diagnosis and avoidance of paralysis. The man’s wife has now become her husband’s primary caretaker. The judge’s verdict included $450,000 to the man’s wife for loss of consortium.

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 Posted on July 29, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

An Idaho jury has awarded $3.85 million to a married couple after the wife suffered a catastrophic brain injury as the result of alleged improper removal of a catheter from her neck. According to the lawsuit, while in the hospital a nurse improperly removed a central venous catheter line which caused the patient to suffer an air embolism and stroke, resulting in irreversible brain damage.

The defendants conceded that the stroke was caused by an air embolism and that the likely reason for the occurrence was the nurse’s failure to position the patient flat on her back while removing the catheter. They defended the case principally on damages, i.e., how much money is appropriate to compensate her and her husband for their losses.

The jury’s award included almost $100,000 in past medical bills, $178,000 to cover modifications to the home to make it handicap-accessible, $1.4 million for future medical expenses and $1.5 million for past and future pain, suffering, disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life. The jury also awarded $350,000 to the couple for loss of consortium.

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 Posted on July 22, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

The majority of medical malpractice cases are litigated in the State Court where the malpractice is alleged to have occurred. When the healthcare facility where the malpractice allegedly occurred receives federal funding, the lawsuit usually is filed in Federal Court where it is defended by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. That is what occurred in recent case that resulted in a $9 million award to the surviving family members of a 40 year old mother of six who lost her own life and that of her unborn child at a Chicago hospital.

The patient – who was seven months pregnant at the time – presented to the hospital with a chief complaint of shortness of breath. She was diagnosed with pneumonia but kept in a regular room instead of being transferred to the intensive care unit and without being given any substantive treatment, according to the lawsuit. When her condition worsened, nurses tried to contact her doctor by phone but were no successful. The suit alleged that instead of transferring her, the nurses did nothing. Approximately one hour after the nurses’ last call to the doctor, the patient was found unresponsive and could not be revived. Upon an emergency cesarean-section, the child was delivered still-born. At trial, the nurses and doctor each pointed the finger at the others.

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 Posted on July 15, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A Missouri jury has awarded $2.6 million in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages to a husband and wife after the husband became severely addicted to opioid pain medications. According to the lawsuit, the man had gone to see his primary care physician for back pain and immediately was prescribed highly addictive pain medication. At trial, evidence was presented that the man was prescribed more than 37,000 opioid pain pills – including OxyContin, Vicodin and Oxycodone – between 2008 and 2012 and that the dosages being prescribed were well above the levels recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The man’s life was turned upside down by his addiction. He ended up checking in to a drug rehabilitation facility, his wife filed for divorce and his relationship with his daughter was severely damaged. His lawyers framed the case as the start to a movement in the United States to curb an "opioid addiction epidemic" and save lives stating that this problem starts with the doctors who are too quick to prescribe such powerful medications, not with the patients.

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 Posted on July 01, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A Chicago jury has awarded a Cook County record $53 million to a now-12-year-old who suffered a devastating brain injury at birth. The boy’s mother arrived to the hospital approximately 40 weeks in to her pregnancy complaining of decreased fetal movement. The lawsuit alleged that at that time, the hospital failed to, among other things, carefully monitor the mother and unborn child, perform a timely cesarean section, follow a chain of command, obtain accurate cord blood gases and recognize abnormal fetal heart rate patters that should have signaled to the doctors that the baby was in distress and suffering from hypoxia.

The hospital’s position at trial was that the mother’s treatment for an infection prior to the birth caused the child’s cerebral palsy and that the child had been born with normal oxygen levels. The child’s disability is so severe that he cannot bathe or eliminate on his own, cannot feed himself and cannot get up the stairs of their home. The tremendous verdict included $28.8 million for future caretaking expenses and $7.2 million for future medical expenses.

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 Posted on June 23, 2016 in Business Counseling, Litigation & Transactions

Businesses are obliged to ensure that their facilities comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. But can anyone who believes he has found a violation somewhere sue to remedy it? The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland recently considered what types of plaintiffs may initiate such litigation, and excluded out-of-state persons that merely "test" faraway properties for ADA compliance.

The plaintiff in Nanni v. Aberdeen Marketplace, Case 1:15-cv-02570-WMN (D. Md. May 4, 2016), was a Delaware resident with a disability who said that he traveled along Interstate 95 into Maryland to visit with family and friends and attend various events. He alleged that he had stopped at Aberdeen Marketplace up to four times to rest and take a bathroom break. During those visits, he contended, he encountered various barriers to accessing the stores and services, defects that he believed ran afoul of the ADA. Asserting an intention to patronize to the shopping center up to three times a year and also test the facility’s compliance with the ADA, Plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Represented by Silverman|Thompson|Slutkin|White, Aberdeen Marketplace moved to dismiss the lawsuit.

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 Posted on June 22, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A Kentucky jury has awarded $2.2 million to a married couple after the husband’s pre-operative work-up went awry, resulting in the amputation of his right leg below the knee. In evaluating the man’s candidacy for a total knee replacement, a cardiac work-up showed a possible blockage in his coronary arteries. Accordingly, a coronary angiogram was performed.

A coronary angiogram a procedure that uses x-ray to determine if coronary arteries are blocked or narrowed, where they are blocked or narrowed and by how much. During the procedure, a catheter is inserted in your groin or arm and into an artery and up to the heart. Fluid is injected through the catheter so that arteries can be seen well on the x-ray and then x-ray photographs are taken as the fluid passed through the artery.

Approximately 16 minutes into the procedure it was determined that there was no blockage and that the previous test had yielded a "false positive." Nevertheless, the procedure was continued for another 74 minutes. After the lengthy coronary angiogram, the man developed blood clots which traveled to his right leg, blocking the flow of blood to that limb and killing the tissue. As a result, the man’s leg was caused to be amputated below the knee. The award included $1.25 million for pain and suffering, $780,000 for medical expenses and $250,000 to the man’s wife for loss of consortium.

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 Posted on May 20, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania jury has awarded $5 million to the Estate and surviving family members of an 88 year-old man who died after medical professionals improperly placed a feeding to into his lung. The man had been transferred from his assisted living facility to a local hospital at which time a feeding tube was inserted. The man had pulled the feeding tube out and so doctors had to reinsert it the following day. After the feeding tube was reinserted, he was taken for a chest x-ray to confirm proper placement of the tube.

The radiologist on duty, a first-year resident, reviewed the x-ray and read it as normal. After that finding, the patient was fed through the feeding tube for more than twelve hours, filling his lungs with fluid, after which he began exhibiting signs of physical and respiratory distress. The patient’s family alleged that the healthcare providers failed to recognize that the physical distress was the result of the feeding tube having been improperly placed. The Defendants focused much of their case on trying to minimize the amount of damages that the jury should award. In doing so, the Defendants emphasized the man’s age, life expectancy and history of medical issues.

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 Posted on May 13, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A recent study has found that medical errors are now the third most common cause of death in the United States. The study found that medical mistakes claim approximately 251,000 lives each year – approximately 9.5 percent of all deaths annually – which is more than deaths caused each year by respiratory disease, Alzheimers, strokes and accidents. In fact, the study found that only heart disease (614,348) and cancer (591,699) kill more people each year. Other categories of death which were part of the study included diabetes, flu/pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide.

The Johns Hopkins professor who ran the study pointed out that in the medical community, when mistakes occur, medical professionals desire (and often are able) to keep those mistakes and confidential. Many states, including Maryland, have medical review board statutory privileges which protect from disclosure the results of investigations into medical mistakes and prevent others from the medical community from learning from the mistakes of others, which could otherwise reduce the risk of reoccurrence. The professor explained that this veil of confidentiality stands in stark contrast to how mistakes in the aviation community are dealt with. He said that when planes crash, the reason is not kept confidential but rather is disseminated widely to every pilot and airline so that the pilots learn from the investigations and can prevent similar disasters in the future. Importantly, the study does not take into account all of the people who are injured by medical mistakes, but who did not pass away.

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 Posted on April 29, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A nearly-two-week jury trial in Pennsylvania has culminated in a more than $44 million verdict for a woman who suffered a catastrophic brain injury that left her paralyzed. The woman, who was 57 at the time, underwent surgery in 2011 to remove a mass on her brain. After that surgery, she was placed on Heparain, an anticoagulant drug. While in the intensive care unit, hospital personnel measured the woman’s coagulation using an aPTT test and found that it had risen from 19 seconds to 32 seconds.

Nevertheless, according to the woman’s attorneys, hospital staff then stopped the regular aPTT testing for at least 48 hours. During that time, the woman experienced a brain hemorrhage and, when she finally was tested again, her aPTT rate was 61. The positions of the lawyers at trial was that if the aPTT numbers are changing, that is an indicator to continue testing, not eliminate it from her post-surgical plan of care and that upon seeing those test results, Heparin should have been discontinued. The defendants’ main position/theory at trial was that the woman’s brain bleed were the result of complications from the surgery unrelated to the heparin.

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