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Four jurors who helped decide one of Tennessee’s largest medical malpractice lawsuits are claiming they felt coerced into finding the gastroenterologist at fault for Plaintiff’s injuries.

This sad case involved a relatively simple procedure – a colonoscopy and endoscopy – on a 33-year-old woman. A day later, complications from the procedures sent her into cardiac arrest leading to brain damage.

In April, a Hamilton County Circuit Court jury found the doctor 51% responsible for the plaintiff’s brain injuries. The jury awarded $6.12 million in damages.

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The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences. The site has multiple atlas images, including sectional and MRI images, of the brain and spinal cord. (I found this link via the Tennessee Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog.

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President Obama’s mad dash for health care reform – which I think is a good thing – might lead him to take a position on medical malpractice reform that puts him in direct conflict with medical malpractice lawyers who have been major donors to President Obama and the Democratic Party.

Maryland malpractice lawyers already deal with malpractice cap (which I oppose) and thresholds to file malpractice lawsuits (which I largely support). I cannot imagine President Obama intends to put in more serious restrictions that we already have on medical malpractice lawsuits in Maryland. But the problem goes beyond just the immediate. If the president supports any curb on malpractice lawsuits, it lends legitimacy to those arguing for malpractice tort reform that they did not have before President Obama jumps off the ship, even if does not stray far from the boat.

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A Beaumont, Texas man has filed a medical malpractice suit against a local doctor, alleging a needle negligently left inside his body during surgery perforated his bladder. According to the suit filed in Jefferson County District Court, the doctor – a long time general surgeon in Beaumont – failed to locate and retrieve the needle before closing up Plaintiff after surgery.

Maryland malpractice law is tough on many of these “left something behind in the patient” claims because of the five-year statute of repose. This malpractice statute of limitations does not excuse cases filed after five years of the injury, even if the plaintiff never knew of the injury. Some disagree with this interpretation by arguing that an “injury” does not occur until the patient knows of the injury, but I don’t know whether this is a viable end-run around that statute that the Maryland appellate courts will sign off on under the current state of his malpractice law (we have never pursed a case outside of the five-year limit). The application of this statute will vary from case to case – fraud is certainly an exception to the harshness of this statute – but this statute can cause some very harsh outcomes.

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The Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog has a post with a link to a Miami Herald article on a 12-year-old boy who died of serotonin syndrome. The mother of the boy filed a wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuit last week in Miami-Dade circuit court, claiming the child’s psychiatrist, and the now-closed group home where this autistic boy lived, failed to properly monitor his condition.

Serotonin syndrome is a rare but not idiosyncratic response to what is a good thing in the appropriate dosage: serotonin. This child was taking Seroquel, Zyprexa, Depakote, and Clonazepam.

While it is easy to question whether some of these drugs should have been prescribed for this boy, the medical malpractice question is whether his death was from serotonin syndrome and whether this combination of drugs was such that a reasonably prudent psychiatrist (and the group home) should have not prescribed this level of medication or should have more carefully monitored the child. Specifically, on this point, the malpractice lawsuit alleges that the doctor had not seen the child in a year before the day he died and that the boy exhibited symptoms that he was reacting poorly to the medication.

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The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that a Hamilton County jury found that a local, prominent gastroenterologist must pay $12 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit after a colonoscopy and endoscopy, which were meant to diagnose a 33-year-old woman’s bowel problems, left the plaintiff with serious brain damage.

“It is very, very difficult to get a judgment against a doctor,” said Matt Dwyer, a Georgia medical malpractice lawyer who was apparently brought in on the case. “People don’t like to find doctors at fault.”

Under Tennessee’s comparative fault law, the jury found the doctor’s medical malpractice was 51% percent of the cause of Plaintiff’s permanent brain damage, so the actual verdict is $6.12 million.

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Maryland’s average malpractice award payment is nearly $320,000, according to a study by the American College of Emergency Physicians. This is in line with the average settlement or verdict nationally of $285,000.

The following is a sampling of medical malpractice verdicts and settlements from Maryland:

  • 2020, Baltimore City: $1,355,722 Verdict. A 68-year-old man underwent a discectomy on his cervical spine. He bled profusely as the surgeon removed bones from his spine’s left side. The surgeon stopped the bleeding and continued the surgery. The man suffered multiple strokes and never woke up from anesthesia. He died the following day. An autopsy found that the man’s left vertebral artery was lacerated during surgery, which caused excessive bleeding. His estate alleged that the surgeon negligently approached the man’s spine from an angle that resulted in a severed artery that caused his strokes and death. Their neurosurgery experts opined that the surgeon also performed the surgery without knowing the artery’s exact location. The Baltimore City jury ruled in favor of the estate and determined that the damage amounted to $1,355,722. However, the non-economic damages award was capped at $785,000. The net recovery amounted to $840,722.
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The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog wrote a post on Friday that analyzes a new 34 page Maryland Court of Special Appeals opinion fee dispute between a referring lawyer and the Maryland malpractice lawyer to whom he referred a failure to diagnose cancer case. The case sheds interesting light on the referral arrangement between a Maryland medical malpractice lawyer and the referring lawyer. One thing that is not common about this relationship: the referring lawyer referred the case after a medical malpractice lawsuit had already been filed.

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Yes, there are still medical malpractice lawsuits in Texas. It just requires an incredibly serious case. A Dallas County jury last week decided such a case, awarding $17.5 million to a former maintenance man for a North Dallas apartment complex who lost his arms and legs from a staph infection. Obviously, this is just an awful case.

This case involved a staph infection called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a strain of staph that’s resistant to the broad-spectrum antibiotics that are used to treat infections. In this case, the doctor gave the patient eight antibiotics but failed to give the one drug that would have treated for MRSA. The Plaintiff went into septic shock, causing infection and gangrene, necessitating the removal of both arms below his elbows and both legs below his knees.

The post medical malpractice cap award is approximately $7.5 million.