Manhattan

Published on: July 10, 2012

Legal Negligence Claim Explored

by Stephen Bilkis

While the legal profession exists in order to assist people with various legal problems, sometimes clients feel that the legal professional is the source of the problem. In a recent case, a husband and wife are suing their lawyer for negligence. In this case, the couple claims, the lawyer’s unreasonable delays lead to the expiration of the statute of limitations, explains a Lawyer.

In this case, the Manhattan doctor involved was sued by several patients within a six month period. The number of lawsuits brought against the doctor over the extremely short period of time suggested that the doctor was acting negligently and would have resulted in a strong case for the couple.

The husband, who was the patient in this case, was treated for a broken ankle which required surgery. The surgery was improperly performed and two follow up surgeries took place to correct the errors from the original procedure. The resulting pain and suffering the couple faced, along with the economic damages from the additional medical procedures, were the reason for the lawsuit stated a Long Island rep.

Published on: June 22, 2012

Doctors in Abu Dhabi Held Liable for Girl’s Death

by Stephen Bilkis

The Supreme Court of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Abu Dhabi has upheld the conviction of the three doctors involved in the 2008 death of a seven-year-old girl, sources confirmed to an observer. In June 2008, the seven-year-old girl underwent a routine procedure to remove her left tonsil. This is a reminder that there is nothing routine about surgery or any kind.

There were three doctors in attendance to the seven-year-olds surgery. The problem seemed to begin when one of the doctors used a tool that was designed to be used on adults. It is unclear at this point just how the bleeding began, but it is a result of the improper tool being used by one of the doctors. As the doctors attempted to stop the bleeding, one of the doctors managed to puncture the seven-year-old girl’s right lung in the process. Also unknown to a nurse at this point, is why the child was left under anesthesia for 20 hours. It is at this time that the girl died.

The original court ruling in this case acquitted all three doctors. An appeals court later convicted and fined each of the three doctors for their roles in the child’s death. The most recent ruling upheld the convictions and returned the case to the appeals court to carry out the judgments. One of the doctors appealed to the Supreme Court again after the initial Supreme Court ruling in hopes for a lighter judgment due to his attempts to stop the bleeding. The Supreme Court denied his appeal and upheld its prior ruling.

Published on: May 31, 2012

Attorney Gets $10 Million for Client in Philadelphia

by Stephen Bilkis

A Philadelphia attorney won a big case for a client in a case of misdiagnosis.

A Scranton lawyer was able to obtain a $10 million award for a 60-year-old man who as misdiagnosed with a fatal neuromuscular disease. The doctor in question was a noticed expert on ALS.

The attorney in this case, who has a brother in the U.S. Senate, represented the 60-year-old man in a two-week trial at Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. According to the suit, the client will have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, due to the misdiagnosis.

Published on: May 26, 2012

Medical Malpractice Verdicts for a $250,000 award cap, infuriates Lawyers

by Stephen Bilkis

A sudy claims that capping pain and suffering awards for malpractice lawsuits to $250,000 will be a big mistake for several reasons. $250,000 might seem like a lot of money to some, but to somebody who is suffering from an irreversible, life-changing condition due to a medical mistake, it doesn’t even make a dent in the costs.

“Our lawyers will be hesitant to take on any of these types of cases because we know we will just disappoint our clients,” he said. He recommends a piece written by Eric Turkewitz to sift through the details of these caps pointing out a quote that said “the ideas of Big Government intervention, protectionism and increased costs to taxpayers would be interesting for conservatives to mull over, as it runs contrary to conservative ideology.”

Although the lawyer says he doesn’t completely conquer with the basic idea that malpractice litigation serves as a useful device for improving patient care, he believes it’s almost too unorganized to achieve that, and said that doctors can’t change their practices to fit a system of basically random punishment.

Published on: May 21, 2012

Medicaid Redesign Team makes hasty and uninformed decisions regarding Medical Malpractice lawsuits

by Stephen Bilkis

In an effort to bring 2011-2012 Medicaid costs down without hurting New York’s healthcare, Governor Andrew Cuomo created a Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) and assigned 23 representatives from the healthcare sector to brainstorm their ideas.

“No patients’ rights representatives were invited to participate in the process, which could be a red flag,” indicated a Lawyer.

He explained that 274 proposals were reviewed by the MRT, which included placing a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits (#131), as well creating a neurologically impaired infant fund (NII). Proposal #131 was favored by the Governor’s Office despite the fact that it will likely deny injured patients and their family’s access to real justice.

Published on: May 16, 2012

Senate Bill 33 will likely only help insurance companies

by Stephen Bilkis

Doctors believe our American healthy care system needs change but the recent bill passed in the Senate last week, they conquer, is not the answer.

Although costs of medical malpractice claims are difficult problems to solve, passing Senate Bill 33 might create a bigger problem for the country.

Senate Bill 33, he explained, will cap noneconomic damage rewards at $500,000, which too many seems like enough money but lawyers argue it isn’t.

Published on: May 8, 2012

Med Mal Reform in Texas may be in Hot Water

by Stephen Bilkis

While some people think that medical malpractice reform, meaning capping damage awards, is a good idea, the victims don’t, and with good reason. Many medical malpractice lawyers are also joining the hue and cry against med mal reform because of what it will do to innocent victims whose damages exceed the proposed caps – in most cases, $250,000, explained a New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer.

What’s going on in Texas could go on in Manhattan and Long Island and may well spill over to other states and this is something that needs to be watched carefully, as the legal impact may be enormous. In Texas, there are concerns tort reform just may override their own state limits on medical liability issues. Seems they don’t think the feds have the power to do that under the Commerce Clause. They also want to ensure the med mal reform law does not violate states’ rights under the 10th amendment. Missing here seems to be the concern for victims, which does come up later, but a little too little too late.

What’s going on in Texas is that they want to keep their own med mal reform law, which caps pain and suffering at $250,000 and they like the idea of tort reform. In fact, they want tort reform for all states – something other Americans are not so sure is a good idea.

Published on: April 26, 2012

Boy Receives £4.6 Million for Birth Injury

by Stephen Bilkis

Mistakes made by medical doctors and staff, left a newborn seriously injured. A Lawyer reports that the child has now been awarded £4.6 million. The compensation will go a long way towards helping his family pay for his continued care.

In June 2004, the boy was born at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn. The boy suffered injuries that were severe when, during the delivery, medical personnel misinterpreted his mother’s heartbeat as his. This misinterpretation led to the staff not realizing that he had an abnormal heartbeat. Had the staff been more diligent and questioning, they would have noticed and been able to avoid the birth injury. Their misunderstanding led to a catastrophic delay in the boy’s delivery which resulted in the fetus’s heart beat stopping. Serious brain injury occurred because of the ensuing oxygen starvation to the brain.

The family’s legal counsel genuinely argued that had his birth been just ten minutes sooner, his client would have escaped injury completely, and the sole responsibility for that should reside on the medical doctor and staff present. The boy will have to suffer with cerebral palsy and learning difficulties for the rest of his life. He will also be wheelchair dependent forever.

Published on: April 8, 2012

Malpractice Suit Settled with $7 Million Payout

by Stephen Bilkis

A medical malpractice suit involving the birth of a child has recently ended with a $7 million settlement. The Judge has recently approved the settlement described a Lawyer. The child who is the subject of the case has a very rare genetic defect.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 against a genetic counselor, nurse, and two doctors who were from China. It is alleged by the patient that the correct medical counseling was not available before the woman gave birth. The woman successfully gave birth to a baby girl which had cat cry syndrome.

The girl is now three years old but is still affected by her condition. She has mental and physical disabilities as a result of this. The parents argue that if the abnormalities were detected earlier then it would have been easier for the patient to decide whether or not to go ahead with the pregnancy. A procedure known as amniocentesis is fairly routine and this would have been able to detect the problem.

Published on: March 29, 2012

Child born with cerebral palsy as a result of errors during delivery

by Stephen Bilkis

When it’s time to give birth, the parents are excited and anxious for everything to go well. When they don’t and their child suffers permanent disabilities because of a hypoxic brain injury, a lawsuit usually follows.

In this case, the parents filed a med mal lawsuit against the hospital and the doctor who delivered their baby girl. The claim states that the doctor ruptured membranes in her head and didn’t use the proper resuscitation techniques and then compounded the whole mess by failing to perform a C-section immediately, reported the doctor. As a result of this gruesome series of errors, the baby did not get enough oxygen to her brain and was born with cerebral palsy, unable to hear properly and with learning disabilities.

The parents filed a claim asking the court for compensatory damages for their baby’s suffering, pain, disability, disfigurement and her inability to ever be able to enjoy a normal life, explained the source.