New York Malpractice & Injury Lawyer Blog

This week, the Missouri Supreme Court heard a case from a family that wants to challenge the state law limiting the amount of damages they can receive after the mother of the family died following heart surgery.

In February 2011, Dodson went to Mercy Hospital to undergo a “routine catheterization” procedure. During the procedure, one of Dodson’s arteries was dissected. As a result, the inner lining of Dodson’s artery collapsed and blocked blood supply to her heart, resulting in her death.

The husband and children of Shannon Dodson, 34, were awarded a settlement of $10.83 million in August 2013. The lion’s share of the settlement ($9 million) was for non-economic damages. The lawsuit came after a medical procedure that was performed at the medical campus of Mercy Hospital St. Louis that resulted in Dodson’s death. The award in the case was among the largest that was ever granted in the St. Louis area for a case of medical negligence.

An attorney who was accused of giving a client substandard advice during the client’s divorce case has now been told she is not allowed to use her communication with the client to write off a malpractice action that was brought against her.

The ruling by Judge John C. Gemmill is just the latest in a number of cases that affirm the confidentiality of communications between an attorney and a client and to protect the materials created and made for or used during mediation.

Even after a panel reversed a trial court’s finding that that attorney Andrea C. Lawrence could defend herself against former client Karen Grubaugh’s malpractice claims by “utiliz[ing] as evidence communications between herself and Grubaugh, occurring during and after the mediation, which led to Grubaugh’s ultimate acceptance of the dissolution agreement.”

A jury in Coles County has awarded damages to a woman who claims that she was injured during a surgical procedure at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center seven years ago.

The lawsuit filed by Cheryl Long, who sued the hospital in 2013. Her lawsuit claimed her trachea was injured when a breathing apparatus was inserted during preparation for thyroid surgery in September 2008.

The jury awarded Long a total of $425,000 in damages at the end of a four-day trial. The damages included in the lawsuit were $200,000 for pain and suffering and s little more than $155,000 for Long’s medical expenses.

A widow has initiated a lawsuit against two Buffalo-area hospitals after the death of her husband.

According to court documents filed in Monroe County,. Tammy Cleveland says her husband, Michael, was still alive when an emergency room doctor declared him dead last year.

Cleveland claims in her suit that if the medical staff had listened to her at the time, her husband might have survived.

A medical malpractice lawsuit has been brought by a Colinsville, IL couple against an area hospital and a medical supply company in what they claim was a botched hip surgery.

According to court documents filed in Madison County Circuit Court on September 19th, Ronald and Stella Vivoid have filed their medical malpractice lawsuit naming Hoemedica Osteonics Corp., d/b/a Strkyer Orthopedics, Stryker Corporation, Stryker Sales Corporation, Stryker Ireland Limited, and Southwestern Illinois Health Facilities as defendants. The Vivoids claim that what should have been a routine hip procedure went awry due to the faulty products that were used.

The Vivoids claim that on September 21, 2007, Ronald Vivoid had a total aphroplasty procedure due to degenerative arthritis of his left hip at Anderson Hospital. The lawsuit asserts that on March 20, 2008, Vivoid felt sudden and severe pain in his left hip. After being hospitalized, doctors found that that he had suffered erosion and corrosion of the metal used during the hip surgery as a result of metal-on-metal contact.

A malpractice lawsuit has been filed by a Cook County patient against her health care providers alleging malpractice.

Cook County court documents indicate that Jane Filip filed a lawsuit on September 16 in Cook County Circuit Court naming Dr. Scott Glaser, Pain Specialists of Greater Chicago, Dr. Anthony DiGianfilippo, West Suburban Neurosurgical Associates, Adventist Hinsdale Hospital and Adventist Midwest Health, Eleanor Pagulayan, and Ziba Gross as defendants.   Boston Scientific Corp. was also named as a respondent in discovery.

According to the complaint filed by Filip, Dr. Glaser diagnosed Filip with complex regional pain syndrome and recommended that she receive a spinal cord stimulator implant. During the operation that was performed by Dr. DiGianfilippo on September 17, 2013, the plaintiff asserts that she suffered a spinal cord injury that has left her with acute paralysis.

A jury has sided with the defendant in a dental malpractice trial, Lacalamita v. Magid, that took place this week in Kings County Civil Court.

In the court documents, the plaintiff, Jeanine Lacalamita suffered from severe headaches, vertigo and dizziness before visiting the offices of dentist Michelle Magid, DDS, in May 2010 for a cracked filling. The plaintiff’s chronic and ongoing symptoms had previously been diagnosed as Ménière’s disease. At issue in the trial is Dr. Magid’s treatment of the plaintiff for the diagnosis of a temporomandibular disorder and not Ménière’s disease in relation to those same symptoms.

During the course of the plaintiff’s treatment she received a CT scan and was fitted by another dentist for an orthodontic device to reposition her jaw. The plaintiff alleges that the device was responsible for giving her an open bite and causing her considerable discomfort in eating for a year. On the advice she received from other dentists, Lacalamita stopped pursuing the course of treatment by Dr. Magid.

A Jefferson County jury has awarded the plaintiff in a medical malpractice suit the sum of $3.7 million. This may be the largest settlement that has ever been granted in the county in such a lawsuit.

The plaintiff, Marie Clayton alleged both wrongful death and medical malpractice for her husband, Robert Clayton, who died December 16, 2009 and named Dr. Dr. Manoj Desai, a urologist as the defendant.

Court documents state that Robert Clayton underwent a laser treatment for an enlarged prostrate performed by Desai. Approximately one month later, Robert Clayton found blood in his urine and was instructed by Desai to go to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital in Mount Vernon. Clayton was admitted to the hospital on December 14, 2009.

A Texas physician is currently looking at a potential decade in jail and having to pay $2 million in fines after a recent lawsuit.

According to court records, Robert Hadley Gross, MD, a licensed psychiatrist based out of San Angelo, Texas, has pleaded guilty last week to one count of healthcare fraud in association with a scheme which included charging for services when patients had since passed away or had been discharged from his care.

Gross has been in federal custody since 2014 on similar charges. He could now face up to 10 years’ incarceration and a potential $250,000 fine in addition to the nearly $2 million in restitution he has been ordered to pay in a previous case when Gross filed false claims against Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance carriers .

A patient has filed a malpractice lawsuit against a doctor and two related health care businesses following a cervical spine surgery.

Rita Vazquez filed a lawsuit last month on September 21 in Cook County Circuit Court, Law Division. The lawsuit names Dr. Michel H. Malek, the Illinois Spine Institute and United Surgical Assistants Inc., also known as United Surgical Assistants Corp., as defendants. The plaintiff is alleging medical negligence.

According to court documents filed in Cook County, on September 22, 2011, Dr. Malek provided neurosurgical care for Vazquez for her complaints of neck pain at Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago by performing cervical spine surgery. While Vazquez was under Dr. Malek’s care, the suit alleges that Malek was negligent in multiple ways.