Articles Posted in In The News

A man in Philadelphia is alleging that his wife’s death was due to medical malpractice. The woman died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, and her widower has filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

According to records, the woman went to Abington Memorial Hospital on August 28, 2016. She complained of being lightheaded and aches. The woman was admitted to the hospital and prescribed Heparin. The injectable drug was to be administered every 8 hours.

On September 4, 2016, the woman was found to be unresponsive. She was intubated and her condition continued to deteriorate. On September 9, 2016, the family made the decision to withdraw care and have the woman transferred to hospice. She died on September 10, 2016. The cause of her death was determined to be a hemmorhage.

A man in South Charleston died just three months after falling at a MedExpress clinic. The man’s widow filed suit for negligence, but a West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the case was actually that of medical malpractice.

According to court documents, the widow of the man filed a lawsuit in Kanawha County, claiming that the clinic had been negligent in making it’s room safe. The original suit was filed as a case of negligence because the man had not received care prior to his fall.

In a 4-to-1 decision, the Supreme Court determined that this was indeed a case of medical malpractice. The man was evaluated prior to being taken to an examination room and this, according to the justices, established medical care.

It is not unusual for women to elect to have labor induced in order to give birth to their child. This is what occurred in the case of Lajide Lawoyin, a woman in Illinois in 2006. She entered St. Anthony Hospital in December of that year for the elective induction of her labor. Her child was ultimately injured during the birthing process. A jury sided with the plaintiff and awarded $2 million to the parents.

According to reports, vacuum suction was used to assist in the delivery, but Dr. Ayoade Akere physically pulled the child’s shoulders from the birth canal. As a result of aggressive pulling, the infant was born with what her parents described as a “floppy arm.” Akere did not immediately notify the parents of the injury. They were not, in fact, told of the girl’s injury until discharge from the hospital.

In the 10 years following her birth, the child has improved, but her condition remains a permanent one. The child suffers with range-of-motion limitations. An attorney for the family said that the child can not lift her arm above her head, or reach down her back.

A jury in Broward county determined that a doctor was liable for medical malpractice after failing to adhere to the standard of care in failing to diagnose a patient properly. The family of the deceased man will receive $2.4 million in damages.

According to reports, Jerry Pettigrossi went to Northwest Medical Center because he felt weak and had “rubbery” legs. A doctor in the emergency room ordered that Pettigrossi be transferred to a specific floor for monitoring, but the patient was taken to a regular medical floor instead. Dr. Ajaib Mann was being covered by an attending physician who was the medical professional who had Pettigrossi placed on the regular floor. Mann did not make the adjustment when he returned to work.

During his stay, Pettigrossi experienced worsening symptoms. He weakness began to progress up his legs. Eventually, all four limbs were paralyzed. A nurse notified Mann that Pettigrossi’s heart rate was spiking, and the doctor failed to examine the patient. Instead, he ordered a consult with a cardiologist. Because the doctor did not examine the patient, Pettigrossi’s paralysis went unnoticed. The man ultimately died.

In 2015, a doctor was found liable for having not treated meningitis in a patient. Dr. Annabel Torres along with her insurer, The Doctor’s Company, were ordered to compensate William Plummer, a man who had sought relief on two separate occasions for an earache. A Florida appeals court has overturned that verdict.

In the original case, it was found that Torres had failed to properly treat Plummer’s earache. As a result, he visited the emergency room and eventually passed away from meningitis. Plummer’s wife filed a lawsuit and won. The jury found Torres liable for not sending the man to a specialist or the emergency room. She only prescribed an antibiotic, despite previous medications not working.

The defendants appealed and won. The court of appeals determined that the defense was never able to review a piece of evidence that had been introduced in the original trial. The appeals court also determined that some testimony from an expert witness was prejudicial.

According to an ex-security guard, a misdiagnosis by an emergency room physician left him a quadriplegic. The man is claiming that he is entitled to over $20 million in damages. The case has been filed against Good Samaritan Hospital by Kyrus Rogers.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Brian Harris failed to diagnose and treat the man when he arrived at the hospital in pain. In May 2012, Rogers collapsed in his driveway. He was in good health at the time, and he was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital for assistance. Harris treated Rogers for stress and muscle aches rather than conducting any type of diagnostic imaging. Rogers was sent home with medication.

Within just 30 days of seeking treatment, Rogers’ condition worsened and he was left a quadriplegic. Rogers now lives with his mother who has become his caregiver. Although Harris was named in the original lawsuit, his name has been dropped from the case.

The state of Texas began its case against a neurosurgeon it has accused of aggravated assault. Prosecutors brought forth both medical professionals and patients in an effort to prove that neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was negligent to the point of having committed crimes.

In the second day of proceedings, prosecutors attempted to prove that the surgeon did not simply make medical errors, but knew that he was likely to actually harm people. To do this, prosecutors questioned two patients and three doctors. One medical professional stated that fusing the lower spine was one of the easiest operations for a spinal surgeon, yet a patient of Duntsch’s woke up in pain, accusing the surgeon of failing to identify its source.

Duntsch has been incarcerated since July 2015 on charged of aggravated assault causing serious injury and causing injury to an elderly person. In fact, he has been charged with five separate counts of aggravated assault. Doctors during the proceedings called Dunstch’s work catastrophic and abnormal.

A woman and her son were awarded $53 million in a medical malpractice case. The woman was able to prove that her son was born with cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability due to negligence on the part of an Illinois hospital. A judge upheld most of the award last week.

In the original case, the woman alleged close to 20 mistakes on the part of medical staff at an Illinois hospital. Those mistakes included a failure to monitor her and her baby, follow a chain of command, perform a C-section in a timely manner, obtain accurate cord blood gases, and notice abnormalities in monitoring that would indicate distress in her baby.

The jury in the case found in favor of the family. The jury awarded the largest verdict in the county’s history of record. After the verdict, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial, stating improper conduct on the part of the plaintiff’s attorney. Even though the judge denied a new trial, he did reduce the verdict by $950,000, citing a “technical error.”

A Maine woman sued a health center and a birth control device’s manufacturer after the device failed and she became pregnant. A Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled last week that the woman, Kayla Doherty, could not claim damages.

According to reports, Doherty visited a health center supported by federal funds in 2012 to have a birth control device implanted into her arm. The device, manufactured by Merck, was supposed to inhibit ovulation for at least three years. After Doherty learned she was pregnant, she discovered that the device had never been implanted in her arm.

Doherty filed a lawsuit against Merck for product liability and the health center for negligence on the part of its physician. Both defendants moved to have the suit dismissed, claiming that the birth of a healthy child did not constitute injury.

When people file a medical malpractice case, it is because they are seeking compensation for financial damages that resulted because of a medical professional’s error or negligence. Unfortunately, cases are not always completed, as a woman in Washington recently discovered.

Michelle Dalen alleged that she fell on ice while cleaning off her car in the winter of 2011. The fall caused her to hit her head on the pavement. She claimed that she was hospitalized at St. John Medical Center and misdiagnosed with a mental illness. She also contended that the hospital did not get her consent for treatment she was given.

A judge dismissed the case last week, saying that the woman did not have enough evidence to prove her case.