Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice cases involving a stroke can be a challenge.  Stroke cases are difficult to prove. Are there viable cases?  Absolutely. On this page, we will look at medical malpractice cases involving stroke diagnostic errors and the average settlement value of these cases.

This post is for lawyers who are getting stroke misdiagnosis cases but do not know whether the claim is viable. There are common threads that run through the most successful stroke misdiagnosis/failure to treat cases.  Cases that result in a settlement or a jury verdict for the plaintiff are usually one of these two breeds: Failing to prevent a stroke and failing to treat a stroke once it has occurred. Continue reading

This page will look at the settlement value of osteomyelitis in personal injury and medical malpractice lawsuits.

Osteomyelitis is a serious bone infection characterized by inflammation of the bone/bone marrow that can prove fatal if not properly treated.  Usually, when it is not properly treated, it is because a doctor has misdiagnosed the condition.  This happens far more often than it should.

Osteomyelitis is caused by bacterial or fungal infections. If caught early, the condition is treatable with antibiotics and, sometimes, surgery. However, if left untreated because of misdiagnosis, the infection can spread to other parts of the body. If bone death occurs, amputation may be the only option to prevent the spread of infection. We are focusing our attention on humans, obviously. But osteomyelitis is not limited to humans.  Elephants, in particular, are prone to this condition, which is often misdiagnosed and leads to their death.

In the new unreported Maryland Appellate Court case of Grgac v. Dash,  the court examined an appeal against a summary judgment in favor of a doctor and Johns Hopkins Hospital. The primary legal question centered on the applicability of the statute of limitations in a medical malpractice case concerning the alleged failure to diagnose multiple sclerosis (MS).

The appellate court upheld the summary judgment, emphasizing that the injury, as defined in medical malpractice law, occurred when the patient first experienced symptoms indicative of MS, which in Grgac’s case was no later than 2011.

Furthermore, in addressing Grgac’s request for an extension of time to file an opposition, the court found no abuse of discretion in its denial, underscoring the importance of adhering to procedural timelines in spite of the plaintiff’s contention that she was put in a really tough spot with her lawyer withdrawing in the middle of the case.

A Jury Verdict Research study found that the average verdict in an improper medication case is $3,539,541.

That is a big number. The median, which many consider a more accurate number, is $1.2 million. Verdicts ranged from $2,074 to $35,500,000. But only 28% of medication error plaintiffs recover at trial. I think the problem in many medication error cases where plaintiffs do not prevail is causation because sometimes the medication error compounds a larger pre-existing health condition and it is difficult for the jury and the doctors to sort it out.

Incredibly, 1.5 million people are victims of medication errors every year, according to an Institute of Medicine study from a few years ago. Most of these errors are relatively harmless.

Last week in Lamalfa v. Hearn, the Maryland Court of Appeals held that medical records could be admitted over hearsay objections when the records are relied on by an expert witness and the records satisfy 4 conditions of Maryland Rule 5-703(b).

Like most states, Maryland has a statutory business records exception to the hearsay rule.   The thinking is that businesses — most businesses, anyway — keep reliable records which makes them more trustworthy than other forms of hearsay.  So admitting hospital records into evidence is a common practice in malpractice and other injury and wrongful death cases.

The post looks at Lamalfa and how to admit medical records at trial with a sample direct examination.

In this post, I will explain how to check to see if a particular doctor has ever been sued for medical malpractice or had a malpractice claim filed against them.

Many prospective patients want to know about prior malpractice suits when shopping for a new doctor. Others become interested in a medical practitioner’s prior malpractice history after a bad experience and are considering whether to pursue their medical malpractice lawsuit.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of checking out a doctor’s malpractice history, I feel obligated to offer at least a little cautionary wisdom. Just because a doctor has previously been sued for medical malpractice does not mean that they are a terrible doctor. The simple reason for this is that medical malpractice lawsuits are common.

On this page, we will look at medical malpractice cases involving misdiagnosis or delay in diagnosis of bowel cancer. We will examine the typical allegations of medical negligence in these cases and what their average settlement compensation value is.

About Bowel Cancer

Bowel cancer is a general term for cancer that originates in the large bowel. The large bowel (large intestine) includes both the colon and rectum which together form the last part of the human digestive system. The bowel plays a key role in final waste removal from the body by turning liquified food waste from the small intestine into solid waste. It is basically like the body’s trash compactor.

In Billing v. Moulsdale, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals overturned a defense verdict and granted the plaintiff a new trial in malpractice lawsuit on damages only.

What the doctor was found to have done as a matter of law is pretty gross doctor are pretty gross.  Essentially, and you can read the case if you want all the details, the doctor performed a breast and vaginal exam on a patient that was completely unrelated to the care he was providing.

Was this a one-time thing?  It never is.  Dr. Moulsdale surrendered his medical license after more women than just the plaintiff accused him of performing unwarranted and unnecessary breast, pelvic, and rectal examinations on several female patients.

In Adventist Healthcare Inc. v. Mattingly, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals (COSA) was asked to consider whether a mother’s decision to cremate her son’s remains amounted to the destruction of evidence in a subsequent lawsuit for medical malpractice. The COSA ruled that having remains cremated does not constitute spoliation of evidence in a subsequent malpractice case. The Court held that family members have no duty to preserve evidence from the body or allow potential malpractice defendants to examine the body independently.

Facts of Adventist Healthcare Inc. v. Mattingly

The decedent (Mattingly) underwent surgery to reverse a colostomy at Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland. Five days after the surgery, Mr. Mattingly died while still in the hospital. Mattingly’s mother was with him at the hospital when he died, and she immediately suspected that the doctors and staff had been negligent. She wanted an autopsy performed to learn the cause of her son’s death, but she didn’t trust anyone at the hospital to give her an honest opinion.

Defendants in medical malpractice cases will frequently defend themselves by pointing the finger of blame at another doctor who was involved in the plaintiff’s treatment.  Sort of.   They talk about but rarely do they put on the case with expert testimony.  They just make a lot of rumblings about it in discovery.

Usually, the doctor who gets blamed is not a defendant in the malpractice case. I call this defense strategy “blaming the empty chair.” This defense strategy can be very effective in certain situations. Juries often feel sympathetic for injured plaintiffs, but may be reluctant to condemn the defendant doctors. The empty chair defense offers jurors a tempting “scapegoat” in this context.  It is always so much easier to blame the guy who is not in the room.  We do it all the time in our personal lives. (Clint Eastwood is a huge fan.)

American Radiology v. Reiss