Settlements and Verdicts
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Medical Malpractice
Berry v. Samaritan Health Corp.
$16.5 Million jury verdict for failure to investigate a seven-year-old child’s surgically correctable underlying heart condition.
Shuster v. Ponzio
$12 Million verdict in medical malpractice suit.
Robert Schultheis v. Sanford Davne, M.D., Thomas Jefferson Hospital, Paul Gorsuch, M.D., and Acromed, Inc.
$10 Million award for medical malpractice upheld as a consequence of performing unnecessary surgery and implanting an unapproved medical device in a man’s spine. Defendant Davne had over 100 lawsuits filed against him during the time period 1988-1995 related to the use of this spinal implant device.
Confidential
$8.5 Million recovery for family of 30-year-old mother who died following the birth of her daughter as a result of negligent treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. Defendants neglected to diagnose, treat and care for this young woman following her delivery on January 29, 2004, which led to her premature death on February 11, 2004. She complained of pain, dizziness, and continued to hemorrhage and show signs of respiratory failure, yet the defendants failed to provide her prompt treatment. Her husband remains taking care of their baby girl.
NunSuch v. United States
$8.4 Million federal court verdict to a 40-year-old mother of three young children for failure to timely treat her in the emergency room which left her paralyzed and brain injured.
Confidential
$7 Million medical malpractice settlement for a birth injury malpractice. Child was injured at birth due to failure to diagnose and treat placental abruption.
Confidential
$6.5 Million settlement for a 46-year-old woman after the negligence on a doctor’s behalf caused a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage due to an unnecessary procedure which resulted in irreversible brain damage, leaving her in a coma. She was eventually transferred to a long-term care nursing home facility in a vegetative state on a ventilator, surviving only with tube feeds for over two years, until her passing.
Messa & Associates’s Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys argued that the doctors were negligent in failing to perform a thorough diagnostic preoperative evaluation and work-up of the patient prior to her initial surgery. Messa claimed the doctors failed to obtain appropriate informed consent from the patient before performing the left carotid endarterectomy, and discussing other treatment options of her condition allowing her to make an informed decision. The defendants failed to produce or find copies of the radiology images taken in the operating room during the patient’s surgery, causing a question about what really happened during the unplanned procedures. The defendant surgeon admittedly stated that he had only performed this type of procedure once before.
Confidential
$6 Million settlement for cardiac defect (tetralogy of fallot) in an infant which went undiagnosed and untreated, resulting in death of the infant.
Confidential
$5 Million recovery for negligence in E.R.
Resulted in paraplegia of a 58-year-old woman. Paraplegia was caused by a delay in diagnosing a fracture in the spine causing a spinal cord injury.
Confidential
$5 Million recovery for emergency room malpractice.
E.R. doctors performed a lumbar puncture of a 69-year-old man following a motor vehicle accident, without first performing a CT scan, which led to brain herniation and permanent brain damage.
Confidential
$4.05 Million settlement for the family of a child who suffered severe brain damage as a result of post-delivery neglect by the hospital staff.
Confidential
$3.1 Million settlement for the family of a brain damaged child who suffered his injuries due to his pediatricians’ failure to timely diagnose and treat his neonatal infection. (Also add under Practice Area: Injuries to Children)
Confidential
$3 Million settlement for a man involved in a motor vehicle accident where he bumped his head and was taken to a trauma center where the medical staff identified that he was at risk for a brain bleed. After being placed on close observation, the physicians and nurses ignored his deteriorating status until he lapsed into a coma due to the emergence of a massive brain bleed. Because of the time lapse in diagnosing and treating this preventable condition, the client suffered irreversible and disabling brain damage.
Confidential
$2.5 Million for failing to timely diagnose rectal cancer.
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$2.2 Million settlement for a medical malpractice case at a New Jersey hospital involving a 54-year-old woman who had an elective bilateral knee replacement surgery. After surgery, the doctor failed to recognize the injury to the femoral artery and lack of blood flow to her lower leg, resulting in an ischemic injury to her foot. Due to the negligence, the woman suffered extensive injuries resulting in irreversible damage and a non-functional right foot. She now has been forced to undergo further painful and necessary surgical and medical procedures to attempt to alleviate and treat her condition.
Marion v. Columbia Hospital
$2.0 Million verdict in a body part mutilation case inside a hospital
Godinez v. St. Joseph’s Hospital
$1.75 Million verdict for the death of a one-day-old child.
Confidential
$1.7 Million recovery for failure to send a mole from a woman’s back for pathology evaluation. Negligence resulted in a delay in diagnosis and treatment of malignant melanoma and resulting in metastasis and death of a school principal.
Nathan Conder v. Jacob George, M.D., et al.
$1.549 Million awarded by jury.
Confidential
$1.5 Million recovery for optometry malpractice. Partial loss of vision as a result of a failure to perform a comprehensive eye exam, including examination of retina on a patient with diabetes causing permanent retinal injury.
Confidential
$1.5 Million recovery for birth trauma. Negligent use of forceps on baby’s skull during delivery, resulting in neurological injury to baby’s arm and leg.
Plover v. Mansukhani
$1.4 Million jury award for failure to diagnose fatal cancer.
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$1.3 Million jury verdict in a medical malpractice action for injuries caused by negligent gynecological surgery
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$1.3 Million recovery in spine surgery case. A 38-year-old man underwent an unnecessary spinal fusion surgery, resulting in permanent injuries.
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$1.25 million total recovery for a client who suffered permanent damage to his heart as a result of his physician’s negligence in prescribing a dangerous dosage of Vioxx.
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$1.25 Million settlement for neurological injury to a 54-year-old woman. Injury came as a result of failure to timely diagnose and treat stroke, resulting in hemiplegia.
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$1.2 Million recovery for 81-year-old woman with brain injury.
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$1 Million for a bioscientist who died as a result of an unnecessary delay in diagnosing his oral cancer.
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$1 Million recovery in malpractice claim involving surgery for Cushing’s disease and injury management of an epidural catheter. Negligence caused epidural hematoma, which doctors failed to recognize and treat, resulting in permanent neurological injury.
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$1 Million recovery for negligently performed spine surgery in Wilmington, Delaware resulting in permanent disability to a 50-year-old wood worker. The doctor performed the surgery in a negligent manner by misplacing two of the pedicle screws which resulted in a permanent neurological injury.
Confidential
$1 Million settlement for family of a man who passed away following an emergency rooms failure to diagnose a cardiac arrhythmia (electrical abnormality of the patient’s heart) caused by Lyme disease.
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$965,000 podiatry malpractice settlement was obtained for a man who injured his ankle while at work. Doctors performed a negligent surgery where screws were misplaced in his ankle joint, causing the man serious and permanent injuries. After three (3) years of litigation, the defendants agreed to pay him the amount of $965,000 to settle all claims.
Confidential
$950,000 recovery in the case of a woman whose nasogastric suction tube was wrongly hooked up to her hospital room’s oxygen on a high liter flow. The oxygen inflated her gastrointestinal system with air causing a perforation of her stomach and colon. As a result of this medical error, the woman was required to undergo surgical repair of her stomach and colon perforations. She later required another surgical procedure to repair a hernia. Unfortunately, she had a serious pre-existing injury as a result of an unrelated Subarachnoid Hemorrhage with prior surgery and brain injury.
Confidential
$800,000 settlement for failure to diagnose aortic dissection, resulting in cardiac arrest and sudden death. Plaintiff alleged that defendants failed to make the diagnosis of aortic dissection, which would have permitted medical intervention preventing his untimely death on December 18, 2001.
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$750,000 verdict at trial for negligence in a spinal fusion surgery. Negligence resulted in neurological injury to snack cake route driver.
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$725,000 settlement for a woman who died from bacterial meningitis after emergency room doctors failed to recognize the signs of meningitis and promptly treat her, even after she complained of pain and showed symptoms of meningitis.
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$720,000 recovery for emergency room malpractice for failure to diagnose a heart attack and discharging the patient without performing an EKG or blood test which would have likely revealed the heart attack. The defendants argued it wouldn’t have made any difference and the plaintiff’s descendant would have died anyway.
Confidential
$720,000 settlement for a woman who was sexually assaulted by her psychiatrist during the course of her treatment for depression and anxiety disorder. Doctor’s license was revoked as several other women, who previously were under his care, came forward with the same allegations, after plaintiffs allegations were aired in a television news piece.
Estate of Johanna Collins v. Satish Shah, M.D.
$700,000 jury awards estate $700,000 in negligent diagnosis case.
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$700,000 for a man against several defendants for negligence in failing to prevent, treat, and recognize a developing decubitus ulcer in plaintiff’s sacrum during inpatient care. Plaintiff was previously paralyzed as a result of an unrelated motor vehicle accident. After a week of hospital care, the man was transferred to a rehabilitation center. Proper protocols were not followed and plaintiff’s bed sore worsened. Although the family made complaints and was reassured that the care would improve, it did not. Due to defendants’ negligence, plaintiff developed infections including and required surgical procedures and inpatient and outpatient medical treatment.
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$700,000 settlement for a man who died after developing a cardiac arrhythmia after having a gangrenous gall bladder. His primary cause of death was sepsis.
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$700,000 settlement for a case where plaintiff came into the emergency room with signs of altered mental status and defendant doctors assumed she had a psychological problem and committed her to a psych ward. She died two days later of viral meningitis and encephalopathy.
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$600,000 settlement for a 47-year-old man who died from HIV and AIDS after his primary doctor failed to test, diagnose and promptly treat him, even after he showed symptoms of the disease. The man was tested for HIV and Hepatitis B (HBV) infection after he reported a needle stick while at his workplace in 1993; both tests were negative. For almost a decade after, the plaintiff never received another HIV test despite having swollen glands, prolonged bowel symptoms, weight loss and other immune-related disorders, all red flags for HIV. When his symptoms progressed, an HIV test was finally ordered and came back positive. By that time, the HIV had developed into the full-blown AIDS virus and the plaintiff was too ill to receive antiretroviral medication, which if he was tested earlier and received the medication, would have prevented his death in 2003.
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$500,000 settlement for a man who died after developing a cardiac arrhythmia after having a gangrenous gall bladder. His primary cause of death was sepsis.
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$500,000 settlement for medicated malpractice in Chester County. Overmedication following thoracic surgery for benign tumor of the chest resulted in death.
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$500,000 settlement for infection following spinal fusion surgery in a 60-year-old woman.
