Posted on September 11, 2015 in Emergency Room Malpractice

At the conclusion of a three-week trial, a Baltimore City jury last week awarded $28 million to a 47 year-old man whose perforated ulcer went undiagnosed, resulting in significant complications and life-altering deteriorations in his health. The man had a history of Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract. However, his Chron’s had not caused him any significant trouble since a surgical procedure in 2000.

In May of 2011, the patient presented to an area hospital with severe, burning left-sided pain radiating to his chest. Rather than rule out an upper gastrointestinal illness, the treating physician treated him for a flare-up of his Chron’s and discharged the patient thereafter. Some eight days later, the patient returned to the hospital with nearly identical symptoms and, again, the treating physicians failed to consider an upper gastrointestinal illness. As the result of the misdiagnosis, a duodenal ulcer was perforated. An ulcer is an open sore or lesion, usually found on the skin or mucous membrane areas of the body. A duodenal ulcer is a sore or lesion that occurs in the upper area of the small intestine.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 04, 2015 in Hospital Malpractice

Earlier this year, a Detroit jury awarded $21 million to the family of a woman who died following a brain surgery that she was never supposed to undergo. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here. The 81 year-old presented to the hospital in January of 2012 for treatment of her bilateral jaw displacement (dislocated jaw). Unfortunately, upon her admission, hospital staff mixed up her CT Scan results with those of another patient, causing the doctors to believe that this woman had bleeding on her brain requiring emergency surgery.

Doctors immediately took her to the operating room where they drilled five holes into her head and remove the right side of her skull. Upon surgically reaching the woman’s brain, no bleed was found. Because of the woman’s age and health, she was unable to recover from the brain surgery and died after 60 days on life support. There also was an allegation in the lawsuit that the hospital attempted to cover up its mistake. The plaintiffs’ attorney was quoted in the article as saying that this procedure was “something that can be done in a dentist chair [but that] instead they took off the right side of her head, and killed her.” Interestingly, the jury at one point during deliberations sent a note to the judge asking whether they could demand that the hospital apologize for its “wrongful and outrageous conduct.” The hospital vowed to appeal.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 31, 2015 in Surgery Malpractice

Not all medical malpractice lawsuits are decided by a jury. In some circumstances – such as those in which the Defendant doctor is an employee of the federal government – a judge decides whether the physician breached the standard of care and, if so, how much money to award. This is called a “bench trial.” In a recent bench trial in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, a Federal Judge awarded the victim of a medical mistake $3.2 million.

In the Arizona case it was alleged that the Plaintiff – a board certified orthopedic surgeon with subspecialty training in spine surgery – consulted his primary care physician for a shoulder injury he sustained while lifting weights. That physician referred him for an MRI of the shoulder. It was determined that the Plaintiff would require rotator cuff surgery and so he was referred to the Defendant-doctor, an employee of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, for the procedure. The MRI also revealed what was interpreted by the Radiologist to be a soft tissue mass in the shoulder. The Defendant, however, interpreted the MRI to show type of mass that was fluid-based “containing joint debris.” The Defendant told the Plaintiff that he would remove the fluid during the rotator cuff surgery. He did not, however, discuss any other type of mass with the Plaintiff and did not seek consent to remove any other type of mass.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 28, 2015 in Doctor Malpactice

No matter the jurisdiction, most jurors who are seated to hear a medical malpractice case/trial carry with them some inherent biases. In fact, it has been our experience that many jurors and inclined to give doctors a “pass” in certain circumstances because the doctor was trying to help the patient, and certainly not trying to deliberately hurt the patient. Moreover, many jurors have family and friends who are in the health care industry and thus they are naturally biased in favor of those individuals, no doubt after hearing the “horror” stories of allegedly unfounded medical malpractice claims. As a result, many jurors will actually scrutinize the Plaintiff’s case for any reason that they can find to blame the Plaintiff for the injury or adverse result. These inherent biases can often be difficult to overcome in a week or two-week trial. One way to combat these biases is to use the defendant doctor or defendant hospital’s own policies and guidelines against them.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 24, 2015 in Medical Malpractice

After a two-week trial this month, a Pennsylvania jury awarded more than $12 million to a 53 year-old man who became paralyzed after emergency room physicians delayed in recognizing and treating his spinal epidural abscess. According to the National Institute of Health, a spinal epidural abscess is defined as a rare disorder caused by infection in the area between the bones of the spine and the membranes covering the spinal cord. Although not always able to be determined, the source is often bacteria that spread from other infections in the body, such as a urinary tract infection.

In the Pennsylvania case, the patient presented to Delaware County Memorial Hospital in June of 2011 complaining of neck pain and tingling in his left arm. His symptoms worsened overnight; he developed a fever, was having difficulty walking and was unable to urinate. These are classic symptoms of an infectious process in the spine. An infectious disease specialist was appropriately consulted the following day and a cervical epidural abscess in the neck was suspected. The infectious disease specialist ordered a stat (immediate) MRI but, unfortunately, the hospital Radiologist incorrectly interpreted the results as showing no signs of abscess or spinal cord compression. Accordingly, transfer to a facility with the proper capabilities to care for this patient was delayed an additional day and, in the meantime, his condition continued to deteriorate. By the time the accuracy of the radiologist’s reading of the stat MRI was questioned, the damage done to the patient’s spinal cord had become irreversible.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 21, 2015 in Medical Malpractice Law in Maryland

In the context of any kind of medical malpractice lawsuit, there are generally two types of damages that can be claimed by the Plaintiff and/or ultimately awarded by a judge or jury: Non-Economic Damages and Economic Damages. Many times, our clients struggle with understanding the differences between these two types of damages and it is important to understand the distinction.

Economic damages are financial costs of an injured party’s trauma, including things such as past medical bills, future medical bills, future care costs and past and future wage/earnings loss. Future care costs, in particular, can often times range in the millions of dollars depending on the age of the injured party and the severity of the injuries suffered. For example, if a newborn infant has suffered a brain injury as the result of the negligence of an obstetrician, a medical expert known as a life care planner is often hired to project what types of care, equipment and services that child will require for the rest of their life, at each stage of their life. These types of damages include everything from the patient’s medications, motorized wheelchairs, physical/occupational/speech therapies, nursing care, in-home attendant care, etc. Other types of economic damages include the cost of modifying an injured party’s home to make it handicapped accessible for them or the provision of a modified van or car to allow them to operate it safely within the scope of their physical limitations. With respect to past or future loss of earnings/wages, once again, these damages can add up into the millions depending on the age of the plaintiff. In many instances, our office will retain an economist to examine what the injured party was earning prior to his/her injury and project those earnings forward to that individual’s reasonable work life expectancy (e.g., age 62, 65, 67 or 70). For individuals who are injured prior to the time that they enter the workforce, our economists are able to make projections as to their anticipated income based upon the education levels and work histories of their parents or guardians. There is no cap on economic damages.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 17, 2015 in Corporations

Governments and businesses know – or at least they should – that there’s a difference between being vicariously liable and being directly negligent. Jurors may not, however, so how carefully should the distinction be explained come time for crafting jury questions? Perhaps not much – according to a new opinion of the Court of Special Appeals, provided the jury is otherwise instructed properly by the trial court and counsel, blurring the line between vicarious liability and negligence in a jury question can be excusable.

In Jordan v. Torain, Ct. Spec. App., Sept. Term 2014, No. 1320 (July 23, 2015), David Jordan drove his car into the back of a trash truck, operated by City employee Robert Torain, as it turned into a nearby alley; Jordan claimed (and Torain denied) that the truck cut across his lane. Jordan sued on claims that Torain was negligent, the City was vicariously liable for that negligence, and the City had negligently entrusted Torain with the vehicle. Torain and a worker on the back of the truck sued as well, alleging negligence against Jordan. The two cases were later consolidated.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 14, 2015 in Fall Malpractice

Healthcare facilities have long understood that patients whose conditions include mobility problems are at an increased risk of falling and injuring themselves. In recognition of this fact, such facilities – including nursing homes – often institute internal policies and procedures governing the process of identifying those patients who are at high risk for falls as well as mechanisms for preventing those patients from falling.

The risk of falling for those patients with mobility impairments is exponentially higher when going to and from the restroom, when showering, and when changing clothes. During these times, a nurse or other healthcare provider should remain in close enough proximity to the patient to catch them if he or she appears unsteady or is about to fall. In the field of nursing, the term used to describe this close proximity is a “contact guard” and requires that the nurse maintain “contact” with a patient’s body so as to both support and assist them while ambulating. In the event that a patient should begin to fall, a nursing aid who is maintaining proper contact with a patient should thus be in a position to “catch” the patient and guide them to a walker, chair or to the floor in a manner that would avoid a traumatic fall/injury.
Unfortunately, physicians, nurses, and other staff at these facilities often violate their own policies and procedures by failing to provide contact guard assistance to patients at increased risk of falling. When a patient who is already at a heightened risk for falling does in fact fall, it can cause catastrophic injuries and aggravate the already-compromised condition of the patient. Falls also can cause significant setbacks in many patients’ road to recovery. Of course, in elderly patients, a fall can result in a shortened road to ultimate demise.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 14, 2015 in Radiology Malpractice

Radiology is an area of medical specialty that involves the evaluation and interpretation of images and films generated by tests such as X-Rays, CT Scans, MRIs, Mammograms, Sonograms and Ultrasounds. Radiologists, the individuals who are trained to read and interpret these images, are often the first line of defense for a hospital or emergency room physicians as the radiologist can often see what the doctors treating the patient cannot: fractured vertebrae, broken bones, internal bleeding, aneurysms, pulmonary emboli and many other life threatening conditions. When a radiologist fails to properly read and interpret these kinds of studies, your health is at risk. For example, a radiologist may miss a fractured vertebrae in a patient’s neck or back on a CT scan or an MRI, a fracture that could, if the vertebrae becomes displaced toward the spinal cord, result in paralysis. Under different circumstances, a radiologist may miss an aneurysm or early stages of an aortic dissection (a tear in your main blood vessel coming out of your heart) that could rupture and cause you to die. When these kinds of errors happen, they may amount to medical malpractice. Although in most cases the radiologist does not communicate with the patient directly, the radiologist’s failure to properly read or interpret a study affects how emergency room physicians and other doctors care and treat their patients. Accordingly, if a radiologist misreads an image or film and mistakenly rules out the condition that you have, your doctors may fail to treat your for that condition.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 03, 2015 in Cardiac Malpractice

An aortic dissection is a serious condition in which the wall of the major artery carrying blood out of the heart – the aorta – tears. An aortic dissection can lead to aortic rupture or decreased blood flow to vital organs. Generally, symptoms of an aortic dissection come on suddenly and often include sharp, stabbing, tearing or ripping chest pain which moves to the shoulder, neck, arm, jaw and/or abdomen. The decreased blood flow to the remainder of the body caused by an aortic dissection can result in fainting, dizziness, sweating, nausea, pale skin, shortness of breath and an accelerated or slowed pulse.

When a patient presents with any combination of the above-mentioned symptoms, a cardiac event – including an aortic dissection – must be included in the differential diagnosis until definitively ruled out. A CT scan can easily be used to diagnose or rule out an aortic dissection but, critically, the CT scan must be performed with dye / contrast in order for the aortic dissection to be seen. Performing a CT scan without dye / contrast will prevent the physician from seeing the dissection, causing the physician to falsely believe that there is none.

Continue Reading ››