$9.2 MILLION SETTLEMENT IN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASE

Following extensive settlement negotiations, our partner, Jeffrey Bloom, on May 8, 2009, obtained a settlement of $9,260,500 in a medical malpractice case in which it was alleged that the defendant doctors failed to timely diagnose a small bowel obstruction in a 37 year old woman. As a result of the defendant doctors’ negligence, the plaintiff suffered multiorgan failure including renal failure that ultimately required a kidney transplant.

On December 20, 2003, the plaintiff presented at an emergency room complaining of vomiting and abdominal pain, but the defendants failed to do any diagnostic work-up repeatedly giving her pain medications which masked her symptoms. She was sent home with a diagnosis of a virus. She returned to the emergency room three days later with excruciating abdominal pain.

Although the doctors finally diagnosed her small bowel obstruction during this second emergency room visit, her surgery to relieve the obstruction was unnecessarily delayed for 16 hours. As a result of these delays, the plaintiff suffered extensive and severe injuries. She was hospitalized for a full year and then required in-patient rehabilitation for 6 months. She has undergone 16 surgeries and 15 hospitalizations to date.

The emergency room doctors who treated her during the two separate emergency room visits as well as their practice, the surgeon who delayed her surgery and his practice, and the hospital were named as defendants. The settlement was for the full amount of available insurance.

The names of the plaintiff and defendants have been omitted due to the confidential nature of the settlement.