N.J. Court Erred With Expert Limit In Malpractice Case

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Posted on 29th March 2013 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A New Jersey appellate panel ruled Thursday that a trial judge shouldn’t have limited the number of experts permitted to testify in a medical malpractice case involving a youth who sustained brain damage and died after being stabbed, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark. The suit will now go back for a new trial.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/03/nj_appellate_panel_judge_cant.html

The appellate court said that a Hudson County judge made an error when he found that the defendant and plaintiff could only bring in one expert each on any subject relevant to the case, The Ledger reported. The panel said that the judge had ended up barring important evidence merely because it was the same as other testimony.

The malpractice case involved Kevin McClean, an 18-year-old Jersey City youth who died in October 2007 from complications stemming from when he was stabbed in September 2005. After the attack, McLean got a staff infection, sustained brain damage and became paralyzed from the waist down, according to The Ledger.

Kevin’s mother, Lisa McClean, then sued Greenville Hospital in Jersey City for malpractice, alleging that physicians should have diagnosed her son’s infection earlier. The jury didn’t find in favor of the mother, The Ledger reported.

During the trial, hospital lawyers argued McLean didn’t have any symptoms the indicated he had an infection.  The plaintiff’s attorney contended that he should have been allowed to call a second emergency medicine expert who would have said McLean should have been given a blood test, according to The Ledger.

The appellate panel ruled that a trial judge doesn’t have the “authority to balance the number of witnesses,” the newspaper reported.

 

N.J. Patients File 15 Lawsuits Over Meningitis Outbreak

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Posted on 24th November 2012 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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The lawsuits have started flying from the lethal fungal meningitis outbreak that reached across the nation, killing 34 people and sickening countless others.

In New Jersey alone, 15 suits have been filed by patients who developed meningitis or were exposed to it after receiving shots of a tainted steroid produced by New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Massachusetts, according to The Record of North Jersey.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/15_meningitis_lawsuits_filed_in_NJ_over_tainted_steroid_outbreak.html

The litigation has been filed in Superior Court in Cumberland County, and names NECC as a defendant, along with assorted doctors and medical facilities that administered the steroid, which is used to quell pain.

The patients who have sued include Jose Ramos, 35, of Millville, N.J., according to The Record. He had his steroid injection in August, and came down with headaches, a stiff neck and “visual disturbances,” the paper reported. According to his suit, Ramos will now have to continue taking anti-fungal medication and have blood tests to check his liver.

The contaminated steroid was recalled, and NECC was closed down. Inspections by the Food and Drug Administration found fungus that could be seen with the eye in vials of medication, The Record reported.

So far 34 people have died and nearly 500 have come down with meningitis in a 19 states, according to The Record. In New Jersey 33 patients have been diagnosed with fungal meningitis, and no one had died.

NECC attorneys maintain that the lawsuits should be heard in federal, not state, court. And The Record reported that several of the cases have already been transferred to U.S. District Court in the Garden State.