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Virginia, DC, and Maryland Personal Injury Attorney News
Get the latest news.Virginia Medical Malpractice Cases
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Doctor Who Failed to Do One of Two Promised Procedures Has to Pay, Says Virginia Supreme Court
Sep 26, 2008A doctor who was to do two procedures, but managed to do only one, has to pay for the subsequent surgery the patient had to undergo.
This Virginia Medical Malpractice Case report is here: - 41 - 50 -
Did Patient Die Because Doctor Hung Up Phone?
Jun 10, 2008The Supreme Court of Virginia has ordered a new trial for the estate of a woman who died from a pulmonary embolism after information about her life threatening condition was not acted upon by her physicians.
In May 2005 Tawanda Williams was referred to a local radiologist for a sonogram of her calf after she reported calf pain to her doctors at Kaiser Permanente. The radiologist, Vienna physician Cong Le, interpreted the study and concluded that Williams suffered from deep vein thrombosis, a potentially life-threatening condition involving blood clots in her leg. While dangerous, deep vein thrombosis is very amenable to treatment.
According the Supreme Court’s opinion, released June 6, 2008, Le reached an operator at Kaiser and, after identifying himself and asking to speak to Dr. McClain, he was put on hold so long that he “lost confidence to get in touch with [Dr. McClain] at that moment.” He stated that he was unable to leave a voicemail or talk to a human being. Dr. Le testified that previously he had problems communicating with the doctors at Kaiser by telephone. Dr. Le hung up and faxed a report to Dr. McClain.
The information that Tawanda Williams had life threatening blood clots was not acted upon by her doctor and she died six days later.
The Virginia Supreme Court said that “the evidence proved without contradiction that the communication problems in this case were begun and put in motion by Dr. Le’s failure to make direct contact with Dr. McClain, a member of his team, or Williams.” Reversing the trial court’s decision to allow the jury to determine that Dr. Le’s negligence was “cut-off” by Dr. McClain’s failure to read the report that had been faxed to him, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial.
Benjamin W. Glass, III, one of the attorneys who represented the estate said that this case “presents a patient’s worst nightmare—a test is done which shows a condition that is life-threatening but very treatable—but none of the doctors act on the request. Dr. Le should have called back and told the Kaiser operator that he had an emergency on his hands and he should also have called Tawanda Williams and told her to get to an emergency department. He had a time-bomb on his hands yet he failed to communicate the urgency of the situation to the Kaiser operator.”
Glass and his co-counsel, Frank Kearney of Washington, D.C. expect that a new trial will be held in the Spring of 2009. The Supreme Court's opinion is here.
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$19 Million Verdict in Birth Injury Case
Mar 20, 2008A boy from Freehold, New Jersey who was disabled from birth has been awarded over $19 million by a Monmouth County, New Jersey jury in a medical malpractice suit, according to the boy’s attorney, Brian Drazin.
Drazin said the money will allow Bonnie Kowalski, his 10-year-old client Brandon’s mother, to pay for his care for the remainder of his life, equip their home to accommodate his disabilities, and purchase a wheelchair-accessible van to transport him. Drazin said that, being completely disabled, Brandon is completely reliant on others to care for him.
After a trial which began on February 11, the jury deliberated for two days before finding that Arvind Palav, an obstetrician, was negligent and awarded $19.25 to the boy on Monday, March 17.
Drazin said that during her pregnancy, Palav misdiagnosed Kowalski after she contacted him on September 11, 1997, complaining of pain in her abdomen. He delayed in determining she was hemorrhaging and lost a great deal of blood, according to Drazin.
Palav also failed to perform the necessary tests on Kowalski and didn’t recognize that the unborn child could be in “fetal distress” and ignored the warnings of a nurse who discovered the problem, according to Drazin.
Drazin said that Brandon, who was delivered by C-section, had to be resuscitated and was in intensive care for four months. He now suffers from severe brain damage and cerebral palsy and is also legally blind.
Over 10 defendants were named in the original complaint, which included Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey and the chairmen of the obstetrics/gynecology and general surgery departments of the hospital. According to Drazin, some were dismissed quickly after he found that they had no part in the delays.
Once deliberations began, Judge Louis Locascio narrowed the issues to that Palav and a surgeon who performed exploratory surgery on Kowalski were the only defendants remaining in the case.
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Tragic Anesthesia Case
Mar 04, 2008In Illinois a jury has rejected the medical malpractice claim the family of a woman who was left in a persistent vegetative state after undergoing a surgical procedure for carpal tunnel syndrome filed against two anesthesiologists.
According to the attorneys for the family of Christina McCray, she received too much sedation during a July 6, 2001 surgical procedure in Maryville, Texas at Anderson Hospital, causing her to suffer sever brain damage.
The defendants in the case were Anesthesiologist Timothy Kurt and Gregory Collins. According the lawyers of McCray’s family, they did not properly supervise and monitor the anesthesia of McCray. They asked the jury to award approximately $20 million to the family as compensation for health care costs and non-economic damages.
McCray, 32, worked as a crane operator and had two sons, age 10 and 12 at the time of the operation. She is currently residing in a nursing home in Belleville, Texas.
There were 11 days worth of testimony heard by the jury and they deliberated for about two hours on Thursday, February 28 before reaching their decision. - 44 - 50 -
Court was Wrong to Dismiss Case-Now the Parties Wait Longer for Justice
Mar 04, 2008A typical tactic used by Virginia medical malpractice insurance companies to defend claims ateries are mistakenly clamped or sutured or cut in surgery is to say "well, the anatomy was abnormal," and that's why it happened.
The Virgnia Supreme Court recently held that a trial court was wrong in dismissing a case where there was conflicting evidence that there was abnormal anatomy.
Clifford Lewis Fanucci, Sr., died after undergoing hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery for a cancerous growth on his kidney. Daniel Mark Hoffman, M.D. clamped the right renal artery instead of the left renal artery during surgery. When he discovered his error, he unclamped the artery but it tore, killing his patient.
There was conflicting evidence at trial about whether Fanucci's anatomy was unusual. Doctors who came in to repair the torn right renal artery that they found nothing abnormal. The pathologist who did the autopsy said he found nothing unusual about the position of the right renal artery, either.
The only doctors to testify that there was anything 'unusual' about the right renal artery were the defendant and his partner!
The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the trial court and ordered a new trial.
Comment from Virginia Medical Malpractice Attorney Ben Glass: the actions of the trial judge are frightening and demonstrate just how difficult a jurisdiction Virginia is for medical malpractice cases. As I read the opinion, there was basically guess-work on the part of the defendant and his partner as to how or why he managed to clamp the wrong artery. There was no real 'evidence' on this issue. In fact, the only real 'evidence' from two indepedent doctors who actually saw the right renal artery was that the anatomy was normal. To me this case is not even close and there is no way the judge should have stopped the jury from making the decision.
This was enourmously expensive for both parties. Even if the judge felt the case should not have been decided by the jury he should have allowed them to decide it later. Then, he could have reversed the jury's decision, but at least the Supreme Court could have reinstated the jury's verdict.
The judge was wrong.. now the parties wait at least another year, spend another $$75,000 or so to retry the case.
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Mary Washington Hospital Lawsuits Settled
Feb 01, 2007Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia has settled five medical malpractice lawsuits filed against it after patients were injured or died after receiving allegedly contaminated heart surgery medication. This lawsuit is not over as two defendants, Central Admixture Pharmacy Services Inc. and B. Braun Medical, the pharmaceutical service's parent company, have not settled and apparently will go to trial. A total of nine lawsuits were originally filed as families or patients alleged death or injury as a result of the bad medication. The surgeries were performed in 2004 and 2005. The families were represented by Stephanie Grana of the Richmond, Virginia, law firm of Cantor Arkema. Those interested in learning more about medical malpractice cases in Virginia should order Why Most Medical Malpractice Victims Never Recover a Dime. - 46 - 50
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Virginia Malpractice Verdicts and Settlements
Dec 10, 2006Click the link below to see a directory of medical malpractice verdicts and settlements in Virginia. While each case is different, you may see a case similar to yours. Get our free Virginia Medical Malpractice Book.
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No Immunity for Report Against Expert Witness
Jul 12, 2006There is an alarming trend in this country of physician defendants making complaints to state Boards of Medicine about experts who give testimony against them. This new case from Florida makes clear that physicians who make these complaints to the Board of Medicine can be liable for defamation and other torts and cannot hide behind peer-review privileges. Read more about this defamation case filed by a medical malpractice expert witness. - 48 - 50
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Doctors doing independent medical exams can be sued
Jan 16, 2006- 49 - 50
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Runaway Juries in DC?
Dec 28, 2005- 50 - 50
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