Dallas Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Doctor's Failure to Diagnose Medical Condition Lead to Plaintiff's Verdict

 

A diabetic man who accused his doctor of failing to recognize the symptoms of Charcot foot recovered $1,475,000. In 2006, David Luna, then 63, said he complained of ongoing swelling to his leg and foot to his doctor at a Diabetic Centers of America facility. He alleged Dr. Lloyd Damon Weddington told him the swelling was a by-product of his diabetes and that he would just have to tolerate it. However, a podiatrist later diagnosed Luna with Charcot foot, and the podiatrist contended Luna must have been suffering from the condition while treating with Weddington. Luna claimed Weddington's failure to diagnose Charcot foot led to ulcers and infections. He is no longer able to walk and his leg will likely have to be amputated below the knee. Weddington argued that he performed all adequate testing and that Luna never complained about his foot after his first visit. The jury awarded Luna and his wife $2.27 million in damages, but it was reduced to due comparative negligence.

Hospital Must Pay For Patient Wrongfully Discharged From ER

A jury awarded $1,315,276 to the family of a woman who died just hours after being sent home from the emergency room. In 2007, Stacy Meaux, 46, presented to Christus St. Mary Hospital in Port Arthur. According to her family, Meaux's chief complaints were pain and tightness in the chest. She was diagnosed with high blood pressure, given medicine and discharged. Less than 10 hours later, Meaux went into cardiac arrest and died. Her family sued the hospital, alleging its nurses failed to inform the ER doctor of Meaux's chest complaints. The hospital denied that Meaux had mentioned chest pain and it argued that it followed the doctor's discharge instructions. The jury found the nurses 80 percent liable and the doctor, who settled before trial, 20 percent liable. The hospital is jointly and severally liable for the entire award, which is subject to caps on damages.

Jury Finds Doctor Gave Informed Consent

A jury sided with two doctors accused of failing to obtain informed consent before performing multiple surgeries on a patient. In 2005, Helen Hale, then 54, underwent a series of surgeries performed by Dr. Peter Lotze and Dr. Kimberly Miller-Miles at The Women's Hospital of Texas in Houston. Hale claimed the procedures reduced the size of her vaginal opening and the length of her vaginal canal to the point where she experiences constant pain and intercourse is unbearable. She contended Lotze and Miller-Miles never told her the procedures could reduce her vaginal opening. The doctors argued that Hale was aware of this possibility before she consented to the surgeries. They also contended that while the procedures did shrink Hale's vaginal opening, it remains within the normal range of vaginal size.

Man Who Developed Serious Infections After Medical Malpractice Wins At Trial

 A jury awarded $4,044,051 to a man who developed multiple infections after a botched colon surgery. In 2003, Dr. Guillermo Ponce De Leon performed a colon resection on William Orton Jr., then 41. Orton alleged the surgeon perforated his colon during the procedure and then failed to diagnose it. In the months that followed, Orton developed infections and other complications. As a result, he had to be hospitalized for several weeks and underwent two more operations performed by Ponce De Leon. In April 2004, Orton saw a specialist in New York, who diagnosed a leak related to one of the surgeries. Orton was referred to an abdominal surgeon and his condition greatly improved after surgery. Orton sued Ponce De Leon for more than $2 million, alleging the surgeon's error and failure to diagnose it led to his post-surgery problems. Ponce De Leon argued that Orton's complications resulted from Crohn's disease.

Patient Paralyzed After Spinal Tap Wins At Trial

 

A man who is paralyzed from the waist down after receiving a spinal tap recovered $10.9 million. Thomas Colombrito developed a hematoma at the lumbar puncture site, which compressed his spinal cord, causing paralysis. Two days later he underwent emergency surgical decompression to no avail. Colombrito claimed that Dr. Sireesha Janga failed to discontinue anticoagulants before the spinal tap. Colombrito also sued Dr. Richard Torres for failing to follow up on an MRI. The jury found Janga 51 percent liable and Torres 4 percent liable. The hospital and neurologist who delivered the spinal tap were found 45 percent liable, but they settled before trial. Due to settlement credits and award caps under Texas law, the jury's $22.5 million award was reduced.

Surgical Center That Used Unsterlized Instruments Must Pay Patient

 

Surgical Center That Used Unsterilized Instruments Must Pay Patient $200,140

On Oct. 14, a jury determined that a surgery facility must pay $200,140 for using unsterilized instruments on a patient.

In 2007, doctors at Corpus Christi Outpatient Surgical Center performed shoulder surgery on Brian Jacobs. By the end of the procedure, the facility realized that the instruments hadn't been sterilized and the surgeon notified Jacobs in the recovery room.

Jacobs then underwent a debridement using sterilized instruments. As a result of the error, Jacobs had to be on antibiotics for two weeks and undergo testing for hepatitis C and HIV for a year; his results were negative.

He claimed that during the year following the incident, he was afraid of getting sick and potentially infecting his wife and children. He sought $390,000 for his mental anguish and pain and suffering.

The facility conceded liability, but it argued that it informed Jacobs five days after the incident that the unsterilized tools had not been used on anyone who had a communicable disease.

Patient Paralyzed After Spinal Tap Gets 10.9M

 

A man who is paralyzed from the waist down after receiving a spinal tap recovered $10.9 million. Thomas Colombrito developed a hematoma at the lumbar puncture site, which compressed his spinal cord, causing paralysis. Two days later he underwent emergency surgical decompression to no avail. Colombrito claimed that Dr. Sireesha Janga failed to discontinue anticoagulants before the spinal tap. Colombrito also sued Dr. Richard Torres for failing to follow up on an MRI. The jury found Janga 51 percent liable and Torres 4 percent liable. The hospital and neurologist who delivered the spinal tap were found 45 percent liable, but they settled before trial. Due to settlement credits and award caps under Texas law, the jury's $22.5 million award was reduced.

Man Obtains $4 Million Dollar Verdict for Error In Colon Surgery

A jury awarded $4,044,051 to a man who developed multiple infections after a botched colon surgery. In 2003, Dr. Guillermo Ponce De Leon performed a colon resection on William Orton Jr., then 41. Orton alleged the surgeon perforated his colon during the procedure and then failed to diagnose it. In the months that followed, Orton developed infections and other complications. As a result, he had to be hospitalized for several weeks and underwent two more operations performed by Ponce De Leon. In April 2004, Orton saw a specialist in New York, who diagnosed a leak related to one of the surgeries. Orton was referred to an abdominal surgeon and his condition greatly improved after surgery. Orton sued Ponce De Leon for more than $2 million, alleging the surgeon's error and failure to diagnose it led to his post-surgery problems. Ponce De Leon argued that Orton's complications resulted from Crohn's disease.

Physician Misconduct Often Tolerated By Texas Medical Board

Seven years ago, after a scathing series of stories in The Dallas Morning News, the Texas Medical Board promised to crack down on bad doctors. Patient endangerment would be dealt with severely. And sexual misconduct, one official said, would become "intolerable."

It hasn't turned out that way.

After its last meeting, in late August, the board announced decisions on four sex-related cases. Two involved doctors whom judges had already sentenced for crimes against children. Two involved psychiatrists found to have had affairs with adult patients – potentially sexual assault under Texas law, but they've not been charged.

The child abusers were allowed to go on practicing medicine, though not with kids. The other two are working without restrictions.

It's all part of a broader pattern of tolerance for misconduct, a News analysis shows. Others who kept their licenses after the August meeting include two doctors convicted of lucrative federal crimes that put patients in harm's way; a neurosurgeon who operated on the wrong body part four times; a cardiologist found to have performed dozens of invasive procedures with little or no cause; and at least seven physicians linked to a death.

In all, 131 doctors were disciplined at the meeting. Only two had their licenses revoked, and then only because they quit contesting the cases against them. A handful of others were suspended or surrendered their licenses rather than fight.

The rest carry on with lesser penalties. For the neurosurgeon, it's 10 hours of continuing medical education. For one of the federal convicts, it's 22 hours plus passing a test on legal issues. For an ER doctor who was too drunk to intubate a patient – a patient who then died – it's therapy and urine tests.

State-mandated secrecy makes it impossible to know why the consequences were so limited.

Virtually all complaint and investigation records, unlike police records, are forever confidential. Penalties generally are worked out privately between a small group of board representatives and doctors' attorneys. "Agreed orders" documenting the deals are on the board's Web site but often vague; even dead patients are not named.

And investigators don't contact patients – or their survivors – unless their complaints were what set the case in motion. The daughter of the woman who was treated by the drunken ER doctor, for example, said she learned of the board's action from The News. (It used other government sources to identify the deceased.)

"We weren't aware anything was wrong," Deborah Loveless said.

The whole board rubber-stamps dozens of agreements at a time, and members do not comment on their decisions. But board spokeswoman Jill Wiggins said expediency drives many deals.

Most doctors facing the threat of revocation will contest it, triggering a process that can last years. Many can continue practicing in the meantime.

Even if the board wanted to gamble on more revocation battles, Wiggins said, "we don't have the staff or the resources." Patients are better protected if the doctor is put under some restrictions relatively quickly and publicly identified, she said.

Board president Irvin Zeitler Jr. said he and his colleagues, in addition to balancing patient safety with physicians' due-process rights, must be mindful of "continuing to provide patients access to medical care." The goal "is to protect the public while allowing the physician to keep practicing if possible," Wiggins said.

The language differs little from that cited in The News' series seven years ago, when one of Zeitler's predecessors explained how the board worked.

"We're not really in the business of jerking licenses," said Dr. Lee Anderson, a Fort Worth ophthalmologist. "Our primary purpose in the disciplinary process is remediation."

Medical Malpractice Reform Does Not Reduce Health Care Costs

 

This article appeared in the associated press regading medical malpractice reform and how or if it affects health care costs:

"THE ISSUE: Would restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits mean cheaper health insurance?

THE POLITICS: Republicans rally around the idea that the health system would save substantial money if limits were placed on frivolous lawsuits by patients or their families, and on the size of awards paid out when medical mistakes are made. Some in the GOP see "tort reform" as a magic bullet for runaway costs and have been pushing it for years. The proposal never goes far with most Democrats, who call it a red herring. This contest of ideas has as much to do with special interest groups as with the two parties. Trial lawyers, who oppose proposed limits on the suits, are heavily connected with Democrats in their political contributions. Traditionally, doctors have given more to Republicans. Their leading trade group, the American Medical Association, counts controls on medical liability as a priority. President Barack Obama opposes what he calls "an artificial cap" on malpractice awards.

WHAT IT MEANS: Lawsuits - or the threat of them - can drive up health care costs in several ways, but it's questionable by how much. Most directly, malpractice insurance is expensive for medical professionals, and it can cost upward of $100,000 to bring a case to court. Still, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that savings achieved by limiting medical liability would amount to less than 0.5 percent of health care spending. In addition, the office studied states with their own controls on medical lawsuits. It found no proof that those limits have reduced "defensive medicine" - expensive and unnecessary tests and procedures ordered by a doctor only to reduce the risk of a lawsuit."