Posted on August 03, 2009 in Medical Malpractice

A jury has awarded $1 million to a New Mexico man who alleged a surgeon committed medical malpractice in repairing a colon perforation after a colonoscopy. The patient suffered a tiny bowel perforation during a colonoscopy. The surgeon then operated in order to repair the hole, but the surgeon did not see any hole and therefore failed to repair it. Because the surgeon didn’t see the perforation, he assumed it had sealed itself, but the surgeon failed to use procedures he could have used – such a dye test – to locate the perforation. As a result, the man’s bowels continue to leak feces into his man’s abdomen for eleven days causing massive infection. The infection resulted in severe scarring in his abdomen, which has required thirteen operations.

As an experienced Baltimore, Maryland medical malpractice lawyer, I frequently handle medical malpractice cases in Baltimore, Maryland and other places involving surgical mistakes. To see some of the cases I have handled, click here .

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 Posted on August 03, 2009 in Medical Malpractice

A New York man has been awarded $19.2 million in a medical negligence case against a hospital in New York City. The man was admitted to the hospitalcomplaining of severe back pain. The hospital’s staff negligently failed to diagnose a spinal abscess, which is an infection on the spinal cord, which quickly led to his permanent paralysis. Apparently, the hospital did not conduct an MRI or CAT scan until two weeks after thje man was admitted, when the damage had already been done. A neurosurgeon tried to reverse some of that damage, but it was too late. The man has been paralyzed from his chest down ever since.

As an experienced Baltimore, Maryland medical malpractice lawyer, I frequently handle medical malpractice cases in Baltimore, Maryland and other places involving paralysis. To see some of the cases I have handled, click here .

In a case like this, it is important to prove violations of the standard of care and that the violation caused the person’s paralysis. In such cases, we frequently use neurosurgery experts, neuroradiology experts, infectious disease experts, etc. One of the most frequent reasons for people to sue in such a situation is to obtain compensation that allows them to obtain better medical care than they or their health insurer otherwise would provide, and to gain independence. That is exactly what happened in this case. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

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 Posted on July 30, 2009 in Criminal Defense

https://www.silvermanthompson.com/lawyer-attorney-1300820.html As a Maryland Criminal Lawyer/Attorney I often have cases that make me wonder what it is exactly that the police are attempting to accomplish. Are they really attempting to win the so called war on drugs or is their strategy (or lack thereof) more cynical than that? Is it just to make as many felony drug arrests as possible regardless of whether the people arrested are really involved in the actual distribution of narcotics in order to give the false impression of progress? I have had several cases recently that have reluctantly made me think that it is the latter.

I have had several cases recently that have followed a very similar pattern:

In these cases, the police get tipped off by a pharmacist that someone is attempting to pass a phony prescription for pain killers or other controlled dangerous substances. The person attempting to pass the prescription is told that the prescription will take an hour or so to fill and asked to return later. By the time the person comes back to pick up the prescription the narcotics detectives are waiting and watching the pharmacy counter. As soon as the person picks up the prescription, he or she is arrested.

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 Posted on July 29, 2009 in Criminal Defense

As a Maryland Criminal Attorney I am often confronted with cases in which a white police officer stops an African American (usally a man). In many, if not most, of these cases the person stopped believes that he was racially profiled or that at the very least, his race played a part in the officer’s decision to stop and/or arrest him.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Medical Malpractice

An Indiana jury has issued a large verdict in a medical malpractice case last month, an unusual thing in a state where such judgments are rare. The jury awarded the woman $5 million after miscommunication about X-rays led her to lose a portion of her stomach. Due to caps on damages, the verdict will shrink to $1.25 million. Only about 1/3 or that state’s medical malpractice cases result in verdicts for plaintiffs .
Before they can sue, that state’s residents must bring their cases before a three-member medical review board, which can take a year or longer. Even if the board decides the case has merit, a trial can take years, and health-care providers are unlikely to settle because the state’s cap on damages protects them from the risk of massive judgments. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

In medical malpractice cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland, we don’t have medical review boards. But we do have tort reform. Though there are many components, the main elements are the requirement of Certificates of Qualified Expert (also called a Certificate of Merit) and medical report before a case can make it to court, and a cap on pain, suffering and emotional distress. These two things have kept verdicts down in Maryland and, as a result, kept medical malpractice insurance premiums down for doctors and hospitals.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Medical Malpractice

An Indiana jury has awarded $5 million to a woman in a medical malpractice case that was caused by a misdiagnosis. The woman, then 18, arrived at the emergency room with a ruptured diaphragm after playing softball. But through several miscommunications about what was shown by x-rays, she was misdiagnosed with a urinary tract infection and muscle strain, and then sent home.
Her condition deteriorated, so she saw doctors several times over more than two weeks. Eventually, emergency surgery revealed the correct diagnosis and resulted in the removal of a third of her stomach. Even today, she must limit food intake to avoid vomiting. She has had six surgeries and expects further complications. The woman can no longer work due to fatigue from the malpractice. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

I have successfully handled many medical malpractice cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland involving the failure to properly read, report and/or interpret a radiology film. These cases are tragic b/c the answer to the problem is right before the doctor’s eyes, but it doesn’t get properly reported.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Personal Injury

A Georgia jury has awarded a Home Depot customer and his wife $1.5 million in a case arising from a forklift accident in a store. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff suffered severe neck and spine injuries after a pallet of plywood fell 24 feet from a forklift. The wood hit a barricade that knocked the plaintiff over, trapping the plaintiff under the plywood. This caused the plaintiff to incur over $120,000 in medical expenses and have to stop working in construction. The verdict included $30,000 for loss of marital relations.

Over the years, Home Depot and other "big box" retailers have faced many lawsuits over what is called "sky shelving," which involves storing stock above customers.

I successfully handled a negligence case just like this in Maryland, where a woman was injured when wood fell on her in a large home improvement store. The key to these cases is getting the policies and procedures of the store in order to show that the store violated its own policies and procedures.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Medical Malpractice

A Frederick County jury has awarded almost $1.37 million to a woman who suffers severe and chronic leg pain and must take a blood thinner each day, after a diagnostic test left her with vascular injuries. The jury found that a doctor negligently performed a laparoscopy to determine the cause of the woman’s ovarian or abdominal soreness, and that he lacerated blood vessels. The lacerations led to emergency surgery which stopped the bleeding, but the incident left her with a deep vein thrombosis, or blood clot, in her leg and the possibility of more clots. The plaintiff alleged that the doctor violated the standard of care by performing the procedure without proper visualization, using excessive force and failing to take proper precautions to avoid cutting blood vessels.

The pain and suffering portion of the verdict, which included more than $315,000 for loss of consortium, accounted for about $1.2 million of the jury’s award. That figure will be reduced by about 45 percent to $650,000, the cap that was in place when the claim arose. The jury also awarded $156,915.01 in economic damages, of which $83,004.16 is for future medical expenses, $65,186.77 is for prior medical costs and $8,724.08 is for lost wages.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Personal Injury

A Florida jury has awarded $750,000 each to the parents of a young man who was strangled to death in a restaurant’s parking lot, in a negligent security case. Jurors decided that the management company that owns a McDonalds and the company that owns the property were negligent for not providing security on the morning of the man’s death. According to the plaintiffs, there were over 750 calls for service from the McDonald’s and the surrounding parking lot between 2001 and 2005. The calls were for juvenile disturbances, loitering and assaults. About 200 of the calls mentioned alcohol use and most were made between midnight and 5 a.m. on Friday nights into Saturday mornings and Saturday nights into Sunday mornings. The defense had argued that the types of calls did not indicate that a homicide was about to take place. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

I have successfully handled many cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland against negligent property owners. Some are major slip and fall or trip and fall cases. Some have been negligent security cases. In such a case in Maryland, the law states that a landlord has a duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of tenants and invitees. If a landlord knows or by the exercise of reasonable care should know that criminal activity against persons or property has occurred on the landlord’s property, the landlord has a duty to take reasonable measures to pro-tect tenants and invitees against these criminal activities. In determining whether the measures taken by the landlord were sufficient, the landlord’s acts can be measured only by the criminal activities occurring on the landlord’s property and of which the landlord knew or should have known and not by those criminal activities occurring generally in the surround¬ing neighborhood.

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 Posted on July 13, 2009 in Personal Injury

A Florida judge has required an insurance company to pay a paralyzed truck driver $14.6 million due to a 2007 accident. The plaintiff was driving an 18-wheeler when another driver ran a stop sign, cutting the plaintiff off. The truck driver swerved out of the way, and his truck overturned. The accident cost the plaintiff the use of both his arms and legs and left him with extensive medical bills. If the plaintiff had not swerved, the other driver would have been killed. The insurer for the truck driver denied coverage, so the truck driver sued.

I have successfully handled a number of major car and truck collision cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland. Truck collision cases in Maryland are especially complicated because the lawyer must know the intricacies of federal and state truck rules and regulations, maintenance requirements, inspections, limitations on the number of hours drivers may drive, etc.

In one recent Baltimore truck accident case that I handled, the driver of the truck that struck my client and caused significant brain damage had been involved in several other accidents before causing my client’s accident. I retained a very well respected trucking expert who said not only was the truck driver negligent for causing the accident, but the trucking company was negligent for continuing to employ the truck driver after several accidents. This resulted in a major million dollar plus settlement.

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