Ex-NFL Star Awarded $11.5 Million For Career-Ending Toe Injury

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Posted on 13th May 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A hurt toe has translated to a $11.5 million verdict for an ex-football player whose promising career was cut short by the injury. http://lawyersusaonline.com/blog/2010/05/12/former-nfl-star-wins-115-million-verdict-against-team-doctor/

Former Miami Dolphins player Otis J. McDuffie won his case against the team’s physician, Dr. John Uribe. The claims that McDuffie had against other physicians who treated him and two hospitals were settled prior to the medical malpractice trial involving Uribe.

After three hours of deliberations, a Miami-Dade Circuit Court jury in Florida rendered the judgment for McDuffie.  It awarded him $10 million for lost wages from 2001 through 2004; $750,000 for past pain and suffering; and $750,000 for future pain and suffering.         

 “O.J.” McDuffie was a football star both in college and  in the National Football League. At Penn State, he set single-season as well as receiving records. The Dolphins drafted him in the first round in 1992, and he became a starting wide receiver. In 1998 McDuffie was named the team’s Most Valuable Player.

But that success came to a halt in November 1999, when the Dolphins were playing the New England Patriots. McDuffie was tackled and he hyperextended the big toe on his left foot. The player left the field and Dr. Uribe  examined him and taped his toe.  The physician then sent MCDuffie back into the game.

McDuffie had heard a pop when he first hurt his toe, and when he was sent back to the field he heard that pop a second time, and left the field once again. This time,  Dr. Uribe gave McDuffie a needle to stifle his pain, taped the toe again and sent the player back out to play again.   

At the malpractice trial, McDuffie testified that Dr. Uribe never informed him of the results of  MRIs that found that he had raptured the ligaments in his toe. And the team physician told McDuffie to keep on playing and practicing, according to the athlete. 

Months later a new team doctor sent McDuffie to a foot and ankle physician, who suggested the player have surgery. But during this period McDuffie was still playing ball with his ruptured ligaments, and as a result he sustained irreversible joint-surface damage.

When McDuffie finally had his surgery, but he still developd arthritis in his toe, which put an end to his football career. The Dolphins let him go in 2002.

During the trial Dr. Uribe’s lawyer argued that pro football players often ask doctors to minimize their pain so they can continue playing, and not lose any pay for missing games.

 

Jury Awards $18.5 Million In New Jersey Cerebral Palsy-Birth Malpractice Case

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Posted on 1st May 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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The family of a 12-year-old New Jersey boy, who developed cerebral palsy after his emergency Caesarean-section was delayed, last week was awarded $18.5 million by a jury against Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/middlesex_family_is_awarded_18.html

The medical malpractice judgment was not only against the hospital but also Dr. Joan Lieser, a Springfield, N.J., obstetrician.

During a trial in Essex County, jurors heard testimony about the birth of Darius Morgan of Middlesex County, N.J. In 1998, Beth Israel was too slow to do an emergency Caesarian-section on his mother. Because of that delay, Morgan now has cerebral palsy, the family attorney had argued.

If Morgan had been born a mere eight minutes earlier, he would have been healthy, according to trial testimony. Now, he needs to be taken care the rest of his life.

Morgan’s mother had filed suit against Beth Israel in 2002, but she died in 2004. The boy was adopted by his great aunt and current legal guardian, Darlene Kim, in 2007.

Saint Barnabas Health Care System, which oversees Beth Israel, declined to comment on the judgment to The Ledger.

 

Los Angeles Hospital On Trial For Lawsuit Over Consent For Infant’s Operation

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Posted on 13th April 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A Tujunga man is suing Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, alleging that his 6-month-old son was brain-damaged after undergoing double hernia surgery that the father never consented to. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hospital-consent13-2010apr13,0,6085749.story

 The suit, which seeks $19 million, was brought by Eduardo Rivas, 43, against the hospital and two physicians. The case is being tried now in Los Angeles County Superior Court, where Rivas testified last week that he never signed a consent form the surgery performed on his infant son, according to The Los Angeles Times.

 Rivas’s son Nathan was born four months premature. The infant had been transferred to Children’s Hospital from Glendale Memorial Hospital, and Rivas got a call from a doctor and a Spanish-speaking social worker that Nathan had to have surgery.

 Through an interpreter Rivas, a roofing inspector, told the jury that the social worker had assured him the surgery was minor and that the only risk was a minor infection.

 Rivas, whose wife died shortly after Nathan’s birth, testified that he did not give his consent. But the next day, Nov. 16, 2007, the surgery was performed on Nathan.

 Children’s Hospital maintains that Rivas gave verbal approval for the surgery. But the hospital was unable to later find any records that proved that Rivas had given his approval, according to The Times. The consent form for the surgery had the name of Nathan’s doctor and a nurse, but not that of Rivas.

 Following his operation Nathan, who had a breathing tube when he came to Children’s Memorial, became  dependent on a ventilator and feeding tube.

 Rivas charges that his son’s condition was the result of his son’s reaction to anesthesia. The hospital blames Nathan’s medical woes on the fact that he was born premature, and had neurological problems.

 If Rivas wins his lawsuit Medi-Cal, the state insurer, will have to be reimbursed for the $913,000 it has already paid for Nathan’s care.    

 

 

Jury Awards Florida Mom $10 Million in Cerebral Palsy Lawsuit

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Posted on 13th April 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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 A Florida mother was awarded $10 million in a case where she alleged an ambulance service’s negligence lead to her son getting cerebral palsy. That’s because the ambulance took her to the wrong hospital when she was in labor. http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/cerebral-palsy-lawsuit-birth-in-ambulance-9606/

 The medical malpractice lawsuit had been brought by Margarita Chess of Volusia County, naming as defendants EVAC Ambulance, Bert Fish Medical Center, Halifax Medical Center, Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando and two physicians.

 All of the parties except the ambulance service had settled with Chase for $1.4 million before the case when to trial, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

 Chess’s son was premature, born when she was just six months into her pregnancy. As she went into labor in 2003, she was first at Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach. She was then supposed to be transferred and transported by EVAC to Halifax Medical Center. But somehow, the ambulance was instead sent to Arnold Palmer Hospital, more than 50 miles away.

 Chess’s son, Addison Chase, was born on the way to Arnold Palmer.

 The malpractice suit alleged that the infant had trouble breathing after he was born. The paramedics performed CPR, but Addison’s brain was deprived of oxygen. As a result he sustained brain damage, and now has the long-term disabilities of cerebral palsy.      

Pfizer Speaks Out On $20 Million In Payments To Physicians

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Posted on 4th April 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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The world’s largest drug manufacturer, Pfizer, tried really hard to make friends in the medical community last year. Wednesday the company said it had paid $20 million to 4,500 physicians and other medical professionals to consult and speak on its behalf the last half of 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01payments.html In Pfizer’s first public accounting of this kinds, the company also said that it had shelled out $15.3 million to 250 medical centers and research groups for clinical trials during that same time span. According to The New York Times, Pfizer is the first drug maker to disclose payouts for clinical trials. A number of pharmaceutical companies – namely Eli Lilly, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline — have fessed up to making payments to physicians. Pfizer made its disclosures as part of an “integrity agreement” it signed to settle a probe into the illegal promotion of pharmaceuticals for off-label uses. Some critics told The Times that they were skeptical that drug companies such as Pfizer would be totally forthcoming with the unaudited numbers they were disclosing.

Health Care Reforms Stymies Caps on Medical Malpractice Damages

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Posted on 30th March 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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President Obama’s health care reform is a triumph for those, like us, who oppose the unfair setting of limits on malpractice awards. We don’t believe that state lawmakers should have the right to tell someone who has lost use of their limbs, or suffered permanent brain damage, that their case is only worth $350,000, or $500,000. Under the law, that should be a jury’s decision, not a legislator’s.

Now, there is more legal backing for our viewpoint, out of Washington. Advocates of setting of caps on malpractice awards against doctors had been lobbying in D.C. for some support for their position as part of the health care changes.

But the overhaul that the president signed into law last week doesn’t address the issue of malpractice-award limits, according to The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703416204575145683793783008.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Proponents of the caps claim that huge malpractice verdicts have sent the cost of malpractice insurance through the roof in this country.

These advocates also argue that fear of being sued for malpractice is contributing to health-care costs skyrocketing, as physicians take defensive measures such as ordering unnecessary tests and procedures to cover their backs in case they are sued later on http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/health/27patient.html?ref=business

Obama’s health care reform marks the third defeat that proponents of medical malpractice limits have suffered in recent weeks. Both the Illinois Supreme Court and the Georgia Supreme Court just tossed out limits in those states, $500,000 and $350,000, respectively.

The Journal pointed out that some malpractice changes did make it into the new health-care legislation. For example, the new law sets aside $50 million for states that try to slash malpractice costs by creating alternatives for trying cases or improving patient safety.

But there is also a provision that lets attorneys for plaintiffs to bypass any alternatives, and instead file suit in state court.

In the Georgia malpractice cap that was overturned, the case involved was that of a woman awarded $1.15 million for pain and suffering she suffered from a botched facelift.

In Illinois, the case led to that state’s malpractice limit being tossed out stemmed from a girl being born with brain damage.

The Journal quoted Theodore Olson, the attorney for the doctor in that case. He said it was hard to understand the notion that the state Legislature couldn’t set limits on damages. Why so?

If a jury of her peers believes a woman deserves $1.15 million because her face was like an open wound after her facelift, who are Georgia lawmakers to say she should only get $350,000?

Georgia Overturns Malpractice Cap In A Case That Puts A Face On Why Limits Are Unjust

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Posted on 24th March 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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This one means something personal to me. Tommy Malone of Atlanta, Georgia is the best lawyer I know. He is a long time personal friend, a man who has mentored me, chuckled at some of my “out there” theories and co-counseled cases with me. His son, Adam Malone, may be the finest “young lawyer” in America. Adam has the combination of character, intelligence and sincerity that if he wanted to run for President, he would be a serious contender. He will someday have the position I now hold as Chair of the Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group.

I first saw the video of the catastrophic ruin a greedy doctor made of this woman’s face last summer at our national convention. My paralegal Jayne, who sat next to me while we watched, it has asked me about how the appeal has come out, a dozen times since.   Here the problem wasn’t that a jury wasn’t favorable to Adam’s client. The reason for the appeal was that the law, put in to assure that all doctors didn’t leave the State of Georgia (how ridiculous is that to even say) had limited her right to recover for this horrible disfigurement, drastically reducing the verdict.   The Georgia Supreme Court has said that was wrong and ruled the cap on damages unconstitutional.  In this case there may be the coming to justice that will forever put a stop to artificial restraints on what victims of malpractice and other wrongdoing can recover.

With this action, Georgia has become the latest state to throw out caps on awards in medical malpractice suits.  In this case,  Betty Nestlehutt, who is 75 now,    was horribly disfigured from a botched facelift. http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/state-high-court-overturns-392119.html?printArticle=y

If you watch the video,  you will see the injustice on capping this wrongdoing. http://www.georgiawatch.org There is no way that Georgia’s $350,000 limit on noneconomic malpractice damages could be considered adequate payment for her ordeal.   It’s particularly heart-wrenching to watch Nestlehutt’s spouse try to carefully apply some kind of bandages to her wounds, as she flinches in pain.

In fact, a jury had found that she was entitled to $1.265 million in damages – a verdict that the George Supreme Court upheld, leading to the overturning of the state’s cap on malpractice awards.

Nestlehutt, who was in the real estate business with her husband in Marietta, Ga., decided to get a facelift in 2006. Her physician convinced her to get a long list of procedures, including the facelift. But after the surgery, Nestlehutt developed raw, open wounds on her face.

Nestlehutt’s face remained scarred, and the video says she is embarrassed to be seen now and doesn’t like to go out.

On Monday Georgia’s highest court ruled on Nestlehutt’s case, finding that the state’s $350,000 limit on noneconomic damages, such as a plaintiff’s pain and suffering, from malpractice was in violation of the Georgia constitution, which guarantees the right to a jury trial.

In the high court’s unanimous ruling, Georgia Chief Justice Carol Hunstein wrote that the state’s 2005 limit on damages “clearly nullifies the jury’s findings of fact regarding damages and thereby undermines the jury’s basic function…The very existence of the caps, in any amount, is violative of the right to a jury by trial.”

Last month the Illinois Supreme Court scrapped the state’s $500,000 cap on malpractice damages against doctors and $1 million cap for hospitals, saying that the limits were unconstitutional. Roughly two dozen state now have caps on malpractice damages.

Georgia was limiting malpractice damages to $350,000 against physicians and $1 million against health-care providers.

In Nestlehutt’s case, a jury awarded her $115,000 for past and future medical care; and $1.15 million to her and her husband for noneconomic damages, with $900,000 of that for the woman’s pain and suffering.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Harvey “Chip” Cole had appealed the jury verdict, based on the state’s malpractice cap.

The real credit in this case must go to Adam Malone.  Rather than declining this case because of the cap, he saw it as just the right case to prove in undeniable ways the injustice of the cap.  He advocated in a special way unique to who he is and changed the law of Georgia and perhaps the law of the land.

Adam, I am proud to know you.

Hospitals Look At Ways to Curb Errors, Help Staff That Make Mistakes

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Posted on 18th March 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Hospitals Look At Ways to Curb Errors, Help Staff That Make Mistakes

The Wall Street Journal Tuesday offered an intriguing take on how hospitals are trying to deal with errors by staff – including consoling physicians and doctors who make mistakes. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704588404575123500096433436.html

The story, headlined “New Focus on Averting Errors: Hospital Culture,” leads off by noting that errors by medical staffs lead to the deaths of an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 people a year.

The piece by one of the Journal’s star reporters, Laura Landro, says that hospitals are not only addressing the problem of staff errors but are also “coming up with procedures for handling – and even consoling – staffers who make inadvertent mistakes.”

A government advisory board, the National Quality Forum, has crafted a Care of the Caregiver guide, which has hospitals treating “traumatized staffers” who made errors with patients as if they are patients, too. Those guides even suggest that such staffers take part in the investigation of the error as long as they are not believed to acted recklessly or intentionally.

Noting that sometimes hard to assign blame for an error, the story cites a case that happened at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wis., four years ago. A nurse, Julie Thao, mistakenly gave a 16-year-old teen, Jasmine Gant, about to give birth an IV with an filled with an epidural pain killer.

The baby was delivered through a Caesarian section, but the mother Gant died. Thao lost her job, and was prosecuted for criminal negligence.

St. Mary’s paid a $1.9 million settlement to dispose of the malpractice suit brought by Gant’s family.

A study on that case that will be published in the April issue of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. That study found that although Thao skirted some safety procedures, there were weak links in the safety guidelines that contributed to her error. That study was also critical of the way St. Mary’s fired Thao.

Eventually, Thao plead guilty to reduced charges of two misdemeanors, and her nursing license was suspended. But Thao, who once considered suicide, got work as a researcher with an official of the National Quality Forum.

Almost 50,000 A Year Are Killed By Infections They Pick Up While Hospitalized

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Posted on 26th February 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Perhaps hospitals should post signs warning patients that they’re at risk of dying – from ailments they pick up while they’re being treated at those health-care facilities. Or so a new study says.

About 48,000 patients a year die from ailments – from pneumonia to blood poisoning – that they contract while hospitalized, according to a study by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy at Resources for the Future, a Washington think tank.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/02/23/2010-02-23_hospital_infections_killed_nearly_50000_in_a_year_says_a_new_study.html

The cases of patients getting an illness while hospitalized lead to 2.3 million extra patient days in hospitals, costing $8.1 billion in 2006, the study found.

Sepsis, a blood infection, killed 20 percent of the patients who got it after surgery, according to the study. Patients who contracted sepsis after surgery stayed hospitalized on average 10 days more, costing $32,900 per patient.

As one doctor lamented, a basically healthy person can come to a hospital for routine surgery, but then develop sepsis because of sloppy infection control and die.

Pneumonia was another deadly disease contracted by hospital patients. Those who got pneumonia had to stay an extra two weeks at the hospital, for an additional cost of $46,400. Over 11 percent of those who contracted pneumonia died, the study found.

Simple measures such as better hygiene, like mere handwashing, and screening patients as they check in can help decrease the number ailments that patients get while hospitalized. But enforcing those actions is difficult.

California Woman Gets $12 Million Malpractice Award After Sustaining Brain Damage From Gunshot Wound

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Posted on 16th February 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Our reality sometimes runs squarely into irreconcilable medical facts. Our reality is that patients get lousy service in Emergency Rooms. Sometimes there is no margin for error. This story is one of those cases. One simply cannot wait your turn when you have an intracranial pressure event going on inside the brain. Any hospital that does not find a way to prioritize head injury in the Emergency Room deserves to pay the consequences.

A Southern California woman, now in vegetative state after being waiting hours in a hospital emergency room to have an air-rifle bullet removed from her brain, has been awarded $12 million by a jury, according to The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/12/AR2010021200089.html

The verdict in Pomona Superior Court was against Greater El Monte Community Hospital, which was found to be negligent in its treatment of Jessica Ramirez, 22. The malpractice suit was filed on behalf of Ramirez by her mother, Ofelia Reynaga.

While at a family member’s house, Ramirez was shot in the head with an air gun in September 2007. She walked into the emergency room of the greater El Monte hospital, but was left waiting for five hours.

Finally, she was taken by helicopter to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., and underwent surgery.

But the pressure and bleeding that Ramirez sustained in the shooting caused permanent damage to her brain. She is now minimally conscious and has to have round-the-clock care.

The suit had named the hospital’s parent, AHMC Healthcare. The hospital plans to appeal the verdict.

“Despite the verdict, we strongly believe the evidence presented in this case shows that our emergency room staff provided compassionate, timely and clinically appropriate care to a patient who had suffered a catastrophic head injury,” Greater El Monte Community Hospital said in a statement.

The hospital’s insurance company had rejected a settlement that was much less than the jury verdict, according to The Post.
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