Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorney Blog - Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP

A Roanoke, Virginia jury awarded a verdict of more than $340,000 to the relatives of a Giles County woman who died in 2001 as a result of a botched lung removal surgery.

The jurors found Dr. Bradley Nicholson negligent in the death of 62-year-old Frances Cumbee. Their judgment determined that Nicholson should pay more than $66,000 in compensation for medical and funeral expenses and an additional $40,000 to each of Cumbee's seven children.

Nicholson worked as a general surgeon for Carilion Giles Memorial Hospital until September 2001, when the hospital suspended his privileges to operate there. That same year, the Virginia Board of Medicine reprimanded him for unprofessional conduct that endangered his patients' health, citing Cumbee's case as one of the more egregious examples.

Cumbee's family first filed their $3 million lawsuit in 2002. The case went to trial three times. The first trial, in June 2006, was declared a mistrial because of evidence issues. The second trial, in February, ended with a hung jury. The third trial began Dec. 11. The jury returned its verdict Dec. 17.

If your loved one died a wrongful death in Philadelphia due to medical malpractice, please contact the attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

In New York state, the Queens district attorney has dropped charges against the driver of a private van carrying a group of young children to school that crashed into a city bus in Queens last week, injuring seven children, one of whom was critically injured.

The driver of the van, Gene Boyd, 60, faced charges of reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child in the accident. "The charges have been dropped at this time," said Capt. Kevin Ryan, a spokesman for the Queens district attorney's office. "There was not enough evidence to sustain criminal charges."

The police said that Mr. Boyd did not have a license to transport children to school. While the district attorney dropped the more serious charges against Mr. Boyd, he still might face lesser charges, the police said.

Mr. Boyd, who neighbors said was a very careful driver, turned the van into the path of an oncoming Q46 bus at 184th Street and Union Turnpike in Fresh Meadows around 8 a.m. the day of the collision.

The most severely injured child, Rebecca Frazier, 9, had head injuries and had been listed in critical but stable condition at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. A hospital spokeswoman said on Monday that the girl's family had asked that they not share information on her current condition.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a vehicle accident in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the accident attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

While most of us have car insurance, we may not all know exactly what our policy provides in the event of a collision. If you've been in an automobile accident, you know the cost of repairs can be very high; when there are injuries, especially serious ones, involved in those accidents, the bills can be astronomical. We assume that because we have insurance, our bills will be paid in the event of an accident with injuries. However, that is often not the case.

In May 2006, the Nixon family was heading home after a family trip to Florida. Bob Nixon was driving, and his 8-year-old son Travis was sleeping in the front seat next to him. Travis' 5-year-old sister, Danielle, was in a child seat right behind Bob, and wife, Nancy, was seated in the back seat behind Travis.

All but Bob were asleep when a drunk driver smashed head-on at 60 mph into their SUV Chevrolet Tahoe. The force of the impact caused the body of the Tahoe to shear from the bolts that held it to the truck's chassis. The impact also caused the floorboards to rise and the dashboard to come down in front of Travis, who was laying crossways in the front seat with his seat belt on. Had Travis been sitting upright, his legs would have been severed. Karen Nixon was pinned against the back of the front seat; her pelvis, thigh, leg, arms and ribs were broken, and she suffered a head injury. Travis suffered head injuries and compound fractures to both of his legs.

Just when the Nixons thought their nightmare could not get worse, it did. They soon found out the driver of the vehicle that hit them had insurance that only covered $25,000 per occurrence. The Nixons had uninsured driver's coverage, but they did not have under-insured driver's coverage. The majority of their medical bills would not be covered, and they would be left with several hundreds of thousand of dollars in expenses. The man who hit them had the minimum coverage that was required in the state of Tennessee.

Because the Nixons, like many families, did not know about under-insured motorist insurance, they will have the burden of financial debt for the rest of their lives.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in an automobile accident in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the experienced vehicle accident attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

A Massachusetts woman was awarded $2.5 million in damages because she received HIV treatment for nine years when, in fact, she was misdiagnosed and does not even have the deadly virus. In her lawsuit against a doctor who treated her, Audrey Serrano, 45, she the potent combination of drugs she took caused a string of medical/psychological problems including depression, fatigue, weight loss, and inflammation of the intestine.

Serrano’s attorney said Dr. Kwan Lai, who treated her at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester’s HIV clinic, repeatedly failed to order definitive tests even after monitoring of Serrano’s treatment did not show the presence of HIV in her blood.

The jury reached its verdict after two days of deliberations; the damages could total nearly $4 million including prejudgment interest. Ms. Serrano filed the lawsuit in 2003 after she became suspicious of her diagnosis and had herself tested at another hospital.

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

A Florida man was recently awarded $12 million by a jury that blamed two emergency room doctors for ignoring a brain infection that left him brain damaged and paralyzed. Joey Crume, 43, went to the emergency room at Mission Viejo Hospital in September 2004 with what he thought was a very bad headache. A CT scan showed that Crume had a brain infection that forced his brain to crush itself against his skull. Crume had worked at a nuclear power plant testing radiation levels.

A radiologist who testified on behalf of Crume said he could not understand how someone in Crume's condition could even be alive. The radiologist discussed the CT scan results with the ER doctor, Dr. Andrew Lawson, but Crume was given some pain pills and was sent home. Five days later, Crume's brother found him in a coma; Crume had suffered two strokes resulting in permanent paralysis on the left side and brain damage.

The jury decided that while both doctors were negligent in this case, Dr. Lawson was to blame because he sent Crume home even though the radiologist had made him aware of the CT scan results. Crume, who now requires 24-hour care, was awarded a total of $12 million; his wife, Judy, has had to quit her job to take care of her husband.

If you or a loved has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

Two people involved in a deadly motorcycle crash in Horry County, South Carolina have died. Nancy Truitt, from Virginia, was riding with Brad Winchester, also of Virginia, when they were involved in a four-vehicle wreck on U.S. 501 near Myrtle Beach. Winchester was pronounced dead at the scene of the wreck, and Truitt died from her injuries two days later at the Medical University of South Carolina. Their deaths are the 75th and 76th motor vehicle fatalities in Horry County this year.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a motorcycle accident in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the experienced motorcycle accident attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

Case Summary

The case was tried before the Honorable Frederica Massiah-Jackson and a twelve person jury. On Thursday, December 6, 2007 after deliberating for approximately 5 hours over two days, the twelve jurors unanimously found that Temple University Hospital had been negligent as a result of the actions of its nursing staff and had caused the death of Rufus Small. They awarded 1.7 million dollars. ($1,700,000) Norman Perlberger, Esquire was lead counsel, presenting plaintiff’s expert, cross examining all of the defendants and their expert, and arguing liability and damages to the jury. He was assisted at trial by his partner Eliot H. Lewis, Esquire. There was no offer of settlement by the defendants.

Basic Facts

On 9/23/2003, plaintiff’s decedent, Rufus Small, 77, a retired welder who did handy man work for his adult children and took daily care of his debilitated wife, made a visit to the Emergency Department of defendant Temple University Hospital with a complaint of tongue and throat swelling. He was diagnosed with angioedema. When his condition worsened he was intubated with a nasotracheal airway tube, admitted, and placed in intensive care. Mr. Small’s subsequent course was marked by agitation on 9/23 and 9/24 for which he was given IV sedation and at times placed in restraints. On the morning of 9/24, his chest examination revealed reduced breath sounds at the bases, a change from his initial exam when he was described as “clear bilaterally” and from 9/23, when he had reduced breath sounds only on the right. The angioedema that caused his hospitalization was noted to be improving on 9/24. Dr. Chatila considered removal of the tube that day, but this was changed to a plan to remove the tube on 9/25. Between 8 PM and 9 PM on 9/24, Mr. Small wrote two notes to his daughter Olivia that “hard to breathe.” Olivia gave this information to the on- duty nurse, who did attend to the patient after the first note. The second note came shortly before the family left. The nurse promised she would take care of Mr. Small.

There is no indication in the record that the doctors were told about either note. At about the same time, the nursing record shows weakness and confusion and that breath sounds were now decreased bilaterally throughout. He also now had bilateral rhonchi, indicative of lung secretions and a productive cough. No treatment was given to ease his difficulty breathing. Instead after 9 PM, an intern ordered restraints and more sedation. Although Albuterol was ordered, it was not given. His agitation continued into the early morning hours. At 2 AM on 9/25 he was again sedated. The resident and intern were informed of the agitation, but did not come see him.

At 2:40 AM it was noted that Mr. Small was using accessory muscles to breathe. His breath sounds were no longer audible. Only then did Dr. Agrama come to the bedside and order emergency measures to help Mr. Small breathe. Despite efforts to treat him, Mr. Small coded at 4:00 AM and was pronounced dead at 4:32 AM 9/25/2003. When the original tube was examined it showed mucous plugging with “concretized secretions” which would have taken hours to develop. This could have been avoided by regular suctioning, which was absent from the record.

When the decedent’s family returned to Temple University Hospital, after being informed of their father’s death, the same nurse who promised to take care of the breathing difficulties would not talk to them.

Trial

Trial occurred from Monday, November 26, 2007 through the verdict on Thursday December 6, 2007. Plaintiff called five live witnesses beginning with the resident defendant, Dr. Susan Agrama M.D. as of cross examination. Plaintiff also called the three adult children of the decedent, Emmanuel Small, Rosemary Small and Olivia Ayranci Small. After reading from the depositions of the decedent’s family physician, an ENT resident and a radiologist, plaintiff’s expert pulmonologist, Dr. William Fineman, testified there was not adequate recognition and communication about Rufus Small’s respiratory distress, which was occurring as early as 8 PM on September 24, 2003, when he wrote his first note to his family. He also testified that there was inadequate suctioning of the tube. It was his opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the doctors and nurses, and therefore Temple University Hospital, through its agents, deviated from the standard of care by failing to act in a timely manner to treat plaintiff’s decedent’s respiratory distress and decompensation. These deviations caused Mr. Small a prolonged period of overexertion to try to breathe, which resulted in his cardiovascular collapse and death.

During her examination in the plaintiff’s case, Dr. Agrama was qualified, by defense counsel, to testify as an expert for the defendants. Mr. Perlberger got her to admit that if the nurse did not communicate with her about the notes, it was a breach in the standard of care.
The defendants though stating before the jury they would recall Dr. Agrama in their case, did not do so, and called only their expert, Dr. Michael Grippi and the two other physician defendants. Mr Perlberger was able to get an admission from the defense expert that Mr. Small may have been in respiratory distress between 8 and 9 PM on 9/24, when he wrote the notes, and that a failure to give ordered medication after 9 by the nursing staff was a breach in the standard of care. The jury charge was made without objection that Temple was responsible for the actions of its nursing staff.

In Arkansas, a bus hopped a highway median and crashed into a pickup truck before being broad-sided by an 18-wheeler, Arkansas police said, killing the pickup driver and two bus riders.

Forty people were hurt in Sunday night's crash, which shut down a 13-mile stretch of Interstate-40 east of Forrest City, Arkansas, said state police spokesman Bill Sadler.

The bus was westbound en route from Chicago to Dallas.

The driver of the pickup truck, identified as 30-year-old Danny Okurily of Hot Springs, Arkansas, died at the scene of the accident. Bus driver Felix Tapia, 28, of Brownsville, Texas, and tractor-trailer driver David Rice, 45, of Mars Hill, North Carolina, suffered minor injuries, according to The Associated Press.

Two passengers were also found dead inside the bus, he said. Their names were not released because authorities have not yet notified relatives, Sadler said.
Several dozen injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Forrest City, Memphis and West Memphis, said police.

The bus, which listed 44 passengers on its manifest, was owned and operated by the Tornado Bus Line, which is based in Dallas, Texas, Sadler said.

The crash happened just after 10 p.m. CT about 10 miles east of Forrest City and about 40 miles west of Memphis, Tennessee, Sadler said.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a vehicle accident in Pennsylvania, please contact Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today.

Concerns about surgeons operating on the wrong part of the body made headlines this week after The Providence Journal reported that on three separate occasions this year, surgeons at Rhode Island Hospital operated on the wrong side of a patient’s head. The most recent case happened when the chief resident started to cut on the head of an 82-year-old patient. The resident, a doctor in his seventh year of specialty training, realized the error before reaching the skull and closed the wound with a single stitch. The procedure was done on the correct side, "with good results," according to a statement from the hospital, which was fined $50,000 by the state health department.

On a percentage basis, surgery on the wrong side or area of the body is considered rare. But nonetheless, it affects hundreds of people a year, and hundreds more cases likely go unreported. This month, the Archives of Surgery ran a letter from The Joint Commission, the primary accrediting agency for hospitals in the United States, noting that it receives about nine voluntary reports per month of so-called "wrong-site adverse events" to its Sentinel Event Database. Last September, the same medical journal reported that wrong-site surgery may be underreported by a factor of 20. That study concluded that there are 1,300 to 2,700 wrong-site procedures annually in the United States.

Many mistakes involve near misses, like the recent case in Rhode Island, where the surgeon starts to cut but realizes the mistake before real damage is done. Sometimes the mistake has dire consequences. In one widely publicized Florida case a few years ago, a series of mistakes by medical staff resulted in a doctor amputating the wrong leg. British doctors in 2002 were tried and acquitted for manslaughter when a patient died after they removed the wrong kidney.

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultatio

Lynn Flaherty visited her family doctor in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania on December 4, 2001 complaining of headaches and nasal discharge—symptoms consistent with a sinus infection. But the physician’s assistant who treated Flaherty failed to make that diagnosis and failed to prescribe antibiotics. Instead, the patient received a prescription for steroids, was told to undergo additional testing and instructed to return in one week.

Just five days later, Flaherty developed stroke-like symptoms, including facial drooping and disorientation. She went to an emergency room where a CT scan revealed a brain abscess. She was immediately flown to Allegheny General Hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery.

After a jury deliberated five hours, Mrs. Flaherty and her husband received $3 million in a medical malpractice verdict.

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

Nearly half of all U.S. doctors fail to report incompetent or unethical colleagues, even though they agree that such mistakes should be reported, researchers said on Monday. They found that 46% of physicians surveyed admitted they were aware of a serious medical error that had been made but did not tell authorities about it.

Doctors are also surprisingly willing to order unnecessary -- and often expensive -- tests such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Just 25 percent said they were looking out to ensure they did not unintentionally treat someone differently because of their sex or race, the survey found. In 2000, the U.S. Institute of Medicine reported that 98,000 people die each year due to medical errors in hospitals alone.

Doctors also did not always practice what they preached ethically. While 93 percent of doctors said they should provide care regardless of a patient's ability to pay, only 69 percent actually accepted uninsured patients who cannot pay.

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the medical malpractice attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could have major implications for Medtronic Inc. and other makers of medical devices.

The lawsuit, Riegel v. Medtronic, was brought by Donna Riegel who says her husband, Charles, who has since died, was left severely disabled when a Medtronic-made heart catheter burst. A U.S. district court judge and then the U.S. Court of Appeals threw out her case.

But Donna Riegel has carried her fight to the Supreme Court. At issue is whether patients can sue makers of catheters and other devices through state tort law when those devices have been approved by federal regulators.

The Riegel v. Medtronic case has "big implications for the medical device industry," said Boston University law professor Frances Miller. "If they are in fact exempt from liability here, regardless of anything, they're going to save [the cost of] having to defend these cases."

Minneapolis-based Medtronic is one of the largest medical device makers in the world. Estimates for the size of this market vary widely, but they tend to hover around $100 billion for the U.S. industry and $200 billion worldwide.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed by a defective product in Pennsylvania, please contact the product liability attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

A motorist accused of hitting two pedestrians and driving home with one of them lodged in his windshield pleaded no contest Wednesday to four felonies, including homicide.

Authorities said Steven Warrichaiet hit the pedestrians after he left a friend's house late July 8. He continued to drive nearly a mile to his home with the body of Tyrone Ware, 50, in his windshield, officials said. Joann Carroll-Hildahl, 42, was found in the street with serious injuries but survived.

Warrichaiet called police about six hours later to report he had been in an accident and thought he hit someone, authorities said. Ware was pronounced dead after officers arrived.

Officials have said Warrichaiet's blood alcohol level was 0.18 percent about six hours after the crash, or more than twice the legal limit for driving. He had been drinking heavily at a friend's home before trying to drive home.

Warrichaiet, 40, faces 47 years in prison plus 30 years of supervised release when he is sentenced in February. He pleaded no contest to charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, hit and run resulting in death, injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, and hit and run causing great bodily harm.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in an automobile accident in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the vehicle accident attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

Actor Dennis Quaid, and his wife, Kimberly Buffington have filed a product liability lawsuit against Baxter Healthcare Corp, the maker of the drug Heparin, which was given to their newborn twins in a massive overdose in November 2007. The two babies, Zoe and Thomas, were among three patients accidentally given 1,000 times the common dosage of the blood thinner while they were hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The Quaids have allegedly filed the lawsuit to keep this from happening to other children.

The lawsuit, filed in Chicago, seeks at least $50,000 in damages and claims that Baxter was negligent in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials with blue backgrounds and failing to recall them after three Indianapolis infants died from overdoses last year.

If you or a loved one has suffered due to a defective drug or defective product in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the product liability attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule an initial consultation.

Mary and John Reutter had slowed down because of traffic on Interstate 35W in Burleson, Texas but didn’t see what had not slowed down behind them. A tractor-trailer slammed into them, sending their 2002 Ford Mustang into the vehicle in front of them.
The Reutters suffered major injuries — and are still recovering a year and a half after the June 16, 2006, crash — but they settled with the truck’s owner, United Petroleum Transports, in October for $5.5 million.

The wreck left Mary Reutter’s left arm paralyzed and cost about $500,000 in medical expenses, an attorney for the couple said. The Reutters moved to Michigan and have been trying to put the pieces of their lives back together. In addition to Mary Reutter’s incapacitated left arm, she only has 40 percent mobility in her right arm, making it nearly impossible to take care of herself.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a truck accident in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the truck accident attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

The popular diabetes drug Avandia (generic rosiglitazone), in addition to causing serious heart risks, may also increase bone thinning, a discovery that could help explain why diabetics can have an increased risk of fractures.

New research raises the possibility that long-term use of this drug could lead to osteoporosis. Researchers have found that in mice, the drug increased the activity of cells that degrade bones, according to information published in this week’s online issue of Nature Medicine.

Avandia was recently in the news again when it was labeled with a second black box warning for its risk of heart failure in some patients. GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturer of Avandia, has already acknowledged that a study found a higher risk of fractures among women who take the drug.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a defective drug or some other defective product in Philadelphia, please contact the product liability attorneys at Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has decided to give a Minnesota family another trial in their medical malpractice suit against the Mayo Foundation. Michael and Nancy Becker adopted Nykkole Rossini after she suffered a permanent brain injury at the hands of her biological father who was later sent to prison for his crime.

The lawsuit, filed in 2001, notes that Nykkole was born in July 1997. When she was just three and a half weeks old, she was brought to Saint Mary's Hospital with a fracture. She had had other emergency room visits besides that one, and in September 1997, she was brought to the hospital with skull fractures and a subdural hematoma. Doctors diagnosed Nykkole with shaken baby syndrome, and she suffered permanent brain damage. At that time, she was hospitalized, and the state of Minnesota took custody of her. She was eventually placed in the care of the Beckers as foster parents; they adopted her.

Because of her injuries, Nykkole will never function beyond the level of an infant and will need 24-hour care for the rest of her life. In January 2004, a jury found that Mayo had been negligent in their care of the little girl but said that negligence did not directly cause the injuries she later suffered at the ands of her biological father. The couple claimed that they did not get a fair trial because the trial court erroneously excluded evidence of Mayo's alleged failure to report the suspected abuse to outside authorities.

The lawsuit further alleged that the doctors at Mayo had deviated from the expected standard of professional skill and care by not reporting suspected child abuse to outside authorities. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on August 16, 2007 that the district court erred when it excluded all evidence related to a hospital's responsibility to report suspected child abuse, and the court said that exclusion might reasonably have changed the result of the trial.

One of the Becker's attorneys, Chris Messerly said that a new trial is an opportunity to have a responsible party pay for the girl's care and spare taxpayers from having to cover those costs.

If you or a loved has suffered due to personal injury resulting from medical malpractice in Philadelphia or anywhere in Pennsylvania, please contact the Medical Malpractice Law Offices of Pomerantz, Perlberger & Lewis today to schedule your initial consultation.