Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A 39 year old Arizona man recently was awarded $6.3 million after suffering a massive stroke resulting in severe brain damage, vision loss and difficulties walking and speaking.

The Plaintiff, a 39 year old wrestling coach, began experiencing dizziness, neck pain, blurred vision and nausea at practice. He was transferred to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix. He underwent a CT scan without contrast as part of a stroke work up. That study was negative. The next day he was discharged with a diagnosis of benign positional vertigo. On the way home from the hospital, he suffered a massive stroke. He sued Banner alleging that its doctors failed to include vertebral artery dissection in the differential diagnosis. He claimed that CT scan with contrast would have showed the dissection (whereas the one without the contrast did not) and he would have been prescribed Heparin to avoid a stroke. The plaintiff also alleged the doctors at the second facility failed to review the records from the first facility, and had they done the same, they would have ordered a CT scan with contrast.

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 Posted on December 30, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A New Hampshire jury this month awarded $5 million to a woman after several procedures by her ophthalmologist left her legally blind.  The woman had been a patient of this physician for a period of eight years.  She was being treated for age-related macular degeneration, a condition that usually responds well to treatment, though it can reduce the quality of a person’s vision.

Following steroid injections, the patient lost much of her vision in her left eye.  Then, after she lost vision in her right eye, the right eye had to be surgically removed because it had shrunken significantly as the result of the treatments that had failed.  A glass eye was inserted in its place.  The lawsuit alleged that the physician injected the right eye with a steroid that was too aggressive and rapidly led to glaucoma, pain and ultimately blindness and the removal of the eye.  Because this patient also had a history of glaucoma, the use of a steroid for early, age-related macular degeneration was alleged to be in violation of acceptable medical care.  The complaint also alleged that this particular physician did not have the appropriate training to be performing these procedures.

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 Posted on December 02, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

Late last month, a Georgia jury awarded $30.5 million to the family of a child who suffered a catastrophic brain injury while being delivered.  The child’s mother presented to her OB-GYN for a regularly-scheduled visit at 35 weeks, where a non-stress test was performed and found to be non-reactive.  A few days after that scheduled visit, the mother returned for an unscheduled visit with a chief complaint of reduced or absent fetal movement.  A second non-stress test was again non-reactive and an ultrasound demonstrated possibility of reversal end diastolic blood flow, a severe condition that results from an increase in resistance to blood flow within the placenta.

The family’s attorneys contended that under the standard of acceptable medical care, this finding required an immediate delivery of the baby.  Instead, the physician who was treating the mother sent her to the hospital for continued monitoring and for a consultation with a maternal fetal medicine doctor who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.  Due to a miscommunication, however, the consult with the specialist did not occur for an additional three hours.  The baby was ultimately delivered by emergency cesarean section due to terminal bradycardia (significantly decreased heart rate).  She suffered a severe hypoxic ischemic brain jury which resulted in development of spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, developmental delays and a seizure disorder.  The attorneys for the family contended that there were several opportunities to deliver the distressed baby but those opportunities were missed by the treating physicians.

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 Posted on November 11, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

Last year, a judge in an Ohio medical malpractice case awarded $24.9 million to a child born with cerebral palsy and to his parents.  According to the lawsuit, the boy, born in 2010, suffered a deprivation of oxygen during his birth.  The family alleged that the signs and symptoms of fetal distress were not recognized or acted upon in a timely fashion, despite the use of a fetal heart monitor.  The lack of oxygen resulted in a severe and irreversible brain injury that caused developmental delays and inability to function as a normal child.

The evidence demonstrated that the boy will require assistance with personal care for bathing, dressing, positioning, hair and mouth care throughout his life and that it is likely that he will require round-the-clock care due to his communication and functional mobility impairments.  The award – made by a judge because it was a bench trial – included $24.9 million for future care, $2.9 million for lost earning capacity, and $500,000 to each of the boy’s parents for their emotional pain and suffering.

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 Posted on November 04, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

A Pennsylvania jury this month awarded $12.7 million to a woman who suffered brain damage after her physicians prematurely removed her breathing tube at the conclusion of a routine tonsillectomy.  At the time of the procedure, the woman was a 33 year-old special education teacher.  The crux of the allegation was that the surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist did not properly evaluate whether the anesthesia had worn off enough for her breathing tube to safely be removed.  After the breathing tube was removed, it was alleged that the health care providers did not monitor the woman’s oxygen levels for sixteen minutes and when they finally did, it showed an oxygen lever of 81 percent, which her lawyers described as "dangerously low."  She was re-intubated but was unresponsive and exhibiting seizure-like involuntary limb movements.

The defendants’ position was that the woman did not suffer an anoxic brain injury but instead had an abnormal reaction to the anesthesia, which could not have been foreseen.  They also argued that the woman’s symptoms were the result of a psychological conversion disorder, in support of which they pointed to her history of depression.

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 Posted on October 21, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

After a five week trial, a Connecticut woman has been awarded $25 million to a woman whose leg was caused to be amputated due to negligent treatment of a blood clot.  In November of 2009, the young and athletic woman sought treatment at a local hospital for an asthma attack.  While at the hospital, the physicians voiced concern regarding the woman’s additional complaints of numbness and pain in her left leg.  Diagnostic testing revealed a blood clot however because the hospital that the woman had presented to was a small, community hospital, there was no vascular surgeon on duty.

When the on-call vascular surgeon was consulted by phone, he ordered another test and then ultimately ordered that she be sent home with instructions to follow up with him in person in three days.  After she was released, her condition worsened and she ultimately ended up requiring the amputation of a portion of her leg.

In addition to suing the vascular surgeon who was consulted, the woman also named the hospital emergency room doctors as defendants.  Those doctors, who are considered generalists, pointed the finger at the vascular surgeon claiming he was the one with the expertise regarding how to treat this condition.  The jury found that the vascular surgeon was sixty percent responsible and that the emergency room physicians and hospital were forty percent responsible.

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 Posted on October 14, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

Earlier this month, a Baltimore County, Maryland jury awarded $4 million as the result of the alleged wrongful death of a 28 year-old man whose heart disease went undiagnosed.  The man was referred by his primary care physician to a cardiologist due to constant chest pain that had been ongoing for more than a year.  The cardiologist in March of 2012 diagnosed him with "atypical chest pain" and sent him on his way without conducting any further studies, according to the lawsuit.

The family alleged that the standard of acceptable medical care required that when the man presented with chest pain, a standard stress test be administered to evaluate for cardiovascular disease.  He returned in April for an echocardiogram and at that time still was experiencing ongoing chest pain.  The man died of a heart attack in July.  A subsequent autopsy concluded that the cause of death was cardiovascular disease.

The jury’s award included $3.75 million for non-economic damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress suffered as the result of the loss of a loved one.  That amount will be reduced to $887,500 under Maryland’s cap on such damages.  The award also included $162,00 for lost household services to the man’s seven year-old child and $9,000 for the cost of his funeral.  If you or a loved one were the victim of a medical mistake, call our experienced medical malpractice lawyers for a free consultation at 410-385-2225.

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 Posted on September 23, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

This week, a Baltimore City, Maryland jury in a medical malpractice lawsuit awarded $10 million to the estate and surviving family members of a pastor who died after treatment for liver and kidney problems at a Baltimore City hospital.  The 63-year-old man presented to the hospital for dialysis and treatment of rhabdomysolysis, a condition that is caused by the death of muscle fibers and release of their contents into the bloodstream which often causes kidney failure.  During his admission to the hospital, the man experienced heart problems as the result of elevated potassium levels causing his physician to administer the medication "Kayexalate."

The lawsuit alleged that the Kayexalate resulted in irreversible colon damage and that the physician who prescribed it was unaware of the risks of that medication.  The defense took the position it was the man’s comorbidities – including his underlying kidney and liver problems – that caused his death, not the administration of the medication.

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 Posted on September 16, 2016 in Criminal Defense

In July I finally resolved a murder case that I have been working on for the better part of 3 years. I received a not guilty on the case in spite of the fact that my client gave a recorded "confession" to the crime.  I am convinced that in spite of his confession, he was indeed an innocent man – and 12 jurors agreed in just over 4 hours of deliberation that he was.  Here are the facts – as I often do I will leave out specific names and locations to protect the privacy of those involved:

In the early morning hours of one day in March of 2013 the police were called to the scene of a single car accident in Baltimore City. Once on the scene, they found an unresponsive adult male slumped over the steering wheel.  They removed him from the vehicle and quickly determined that he had suffered from a single gunshot to the back.  The paramedics worked on him at the scene but  were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police inventoried the contents of the vehicle and found $1200 in cash (mostly in $20 bills) a gold watch, a half consumed bottle of soda and a few other items. The vehicle in question was a 10 year old Mercedes Benz.  It was determined in the initial stages of the investigation that the victim was unemployed and had been for some time.  It was also determined that he had been involved in the distribution of narcotics.  In fact this information was confirmed by his girlfriend.  Finally, a bulletin was very recently circulated to the officers and detectives working this part of the city, that there was a significant uptick in gang related activity (in particular Crip activity) in the area.  I will let the reader draw your own conclusions about the likely circumstances of this shooting but it look fairly obvious to me that it was drug related.

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 Posted on September 16, 2016 in Medical Malpractice

In late May of 2012, a 75 year-old woman presented to the hospital with a deep vein thrombosis blood clot in her leg.  She was treated and discharged days later with instructions to take blood thinners.  Less than a week after she was discharged, she awoke in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in the hip and groin area.  She was taken via ambulance to the hospital where she came under the care of two separate physicians over a period of ten hours during which time no diagnostic tests were ordered or performed.  She subsequently was discharged to a nursing home with a diagnosis of musculoskeletal pain which the physicians had attributed to the woman’s deep vein thrombosis blood clot a week earlier.

A day later, the nursing home staff found the woman to be in hemorrhagic shock.  She was rushed back to the emergency room but ultimately died six weeks later.  The lawsuit alleged that the Defendant physicians failed to timely diagnose and treat what turned out to be a retroperitoneal hematoma, which is an accumulation of blood in the portion of the abdomen called the retroperitoneal space.

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