As mentioned many times in these blogs Jurys SELDOM give money damages in Medical malpractice cases.
However when they do make an award,it is often a huge one.
Like this one.
$7.7 million dollars huge.
What really seems to drive these cases, is when the jury believes that the Hospital and Doctors didn’t do enough to protect a patient.
Jurors often think to themselves, my God that could’ve been me there who was treated so horribly.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, Medical malpractice, car accident and criminal defense attorney Bernie Tully believes that by and large most juries want to do the right thing.
They want to treat all the parties fairly whether it’s the victim or the doctors and hospitals.
In fact that’s the genius of our system.
The jurors act as the finders of the facts in a given situation.
They decide what is fact and what is opinion.
In this case it seems as though the jury was troubled by the hospitals failure to run the appropriate tests that most people would understand to be fundamental.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, Medical malpractice, car accident and criminal defense attorney Bernie Tully thinks the facts were kind of obvious here.
Someone comes in to a hospital in a wheelchair after a recent surgery for a broken leg and a huge bell should’ve gone off to check for blood clots.
The failure of all the medical providers to do such a basic test is somewhat inexplicable.
This failure led to this poor woman’s death.And that is the WHY of this verdict!
Checkout the article from the Lego Intelligencer below:
“The family of a woman who suffered a fatal blood clot after emergency medical staff at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital allegedly failed to properly test for a pulmonary embolism has won a $7.7 million verdict.
A jury in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas delivered the verdict Friday in Durfy v. Forstater after five days of trial. According to attorneys for the plaintiffs, the award came after the parties agreed to a confidential settlement while the jury deliberated.
Brian Durfy brought the case as administrator of the estate of Ingrid Clark, who died of a pulmonary embolism two weeks after she was treated at the hospital. Along with suing Jefferson Hospital, Durfy also sued Drs. Alan Forstater and David Morley, who was let out of the case before trial. The jury found the hospital and Forstater were each 50 percent liable. It found Clark was negligent, but that her negligence was not a cause of her injuries.
Although the defendants contended there was no reason to suspect Clark was at risk for blood clots, the plaintiff’s attorney, Robert Morris of Morris Wilson, noted that Clark had recently suffered a broken leg, for which she had undergone surgery, and had been taken to Jefferson Hospital in a wheelchair.
“The testimony made it pretty obvious that with anyone who comes in with a wheelchair, who recently had surgery, there should have been a reason to suspect it,” said Morris, who tried the case.
What do you think of the verdict?
Thanks for reading.
Bernie the attorney.