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Featured Settlements and Verdicts
Medical Negligence - $5.9 million Award to Minor
A minor child was admitted to a hospital for treatment for a severe asthma attack. Upon admission, he was alert, speaking, and could see. Due to negligent administration of medications, the boy lapsed into unconsciousness and had to be resuscitated. As a result, the child, who is 13 years old, is now legally blind and suffers from neurological damage.
Traumatic Brain Injury - Johanna's Story
JACKSONVILLE , Fl. Monday, October 13-Today, twenty year old Johanna Shirley, former cheerleader and high achiever, will return to Jacksonville's Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, 30 months after she first went there to learn how to live all over again. But, instead of going through hours of rigorous rehabilitation, Johanna will be there to thank the doctors and therapists for their help and dedication.
Last week, Johanna graduated from Brooks, a milestone in her struggles to cope with her life as a result of the brain damage she suffered while receiving treatment at Orange Park Medical Center over two years ago. These injuries left her as only a shell of the promising and active teenager she was before the tragedy struck her.
"She was very active, took dancing and gymnastics, played the piano and she was a cheerleader since about fifth grade through high school," said Johanna's mother Jeanne Shirley. "She was making good grades in community college and planning on transferring to Brigham Young University." The Shirleys are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
Now, Johanna is unable to remember much of her life before May 18, 2001. That's the day she fainted on her job at a Dillard's Department Store and was taken by ambulance to Orange Park Medical Center.
Experts said Johanna suffered brain damage because she was not properly treated. Johanna and her parents say she "died" lying there in an emergency room bed.
In fact, Johanna suffered severe brain damage that noticeably affects her ability to walk, talk and remember events from a short time ago, much less prior to May 18, 2001. Johanna has had surgery to correct contracted limbs, and she has had casts on every limb. Ten weeks after entering Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, Johanna said her first words, "Mom, I want to see you".
On Wednesday, Florida will mark the first month of new caps on medical malpractice awards that were passed by the Legislature late this summer and took effect on September 15. The new limits put a cap on non-economic damages at $750,000 for hospitals and $150,000 for emergency physicians.
The Shirleys are very concerned for future families who will be denied the peace of mind and the financial help they will need because of the caps on malpractice awards. "It's idiotic and ridiculous," said Johanna's father, Harry Shirley.
For Johanna, like most everything else in her life now, the question she wants to ask Florida law makers is simple: "What were you thinking?"
Mr. Shirley is both thoughtful and blunt when he discusses his own situation.
"We've never asked for help, but when this happened, we didn't know what to do. We were angry and we were scared. Our son-in-law called lawyer Eddie Farah and asked him to help. Thank God he did."
Mr. Shirley said that over the last 30 months he has felt like he has been lost in a long, dark railroad tunnel without a light at the end. But, that changed recently when he met with Mr. Farah and learned that Orange Park Medical Center had settled the case for the $5,000,000. that the Shirleys had demanded.
"That's the first time I looked down that tunnel and saw a light, saw some hope, because I knew that no matter what happened to me, my daughter will be cared for. It was the first time I had any peace, and if there had been caps I would have never had that peace."
The Shirleys estimate that Johanna's care and rehabilitation since 2001 has cost more than $250,000. In addition to her surgeries and medical treatment, her parents drove her from Orange Park to Brooks for rehabilitation four days a week for more than two years. Johanna's recovery is never expected to be complete, and it is anticipated that she will need care and rehabilitation for as many as 50 more years.
The price of their stress and hardship, the Shirleys say, has no limit. "These new caps are an assault on a family's dignity and integrity," said Mrs. Shirley.
The Florida Legislature should re-consider the reforms and remove the caps, said Johanna's parents. "The caps don't lower the cost of malpractice insurance for physicians and the only ones hurt by the caps are the victims of malpractice," said Mr. Shirley.
While Johanna's case is tragic, experts say it is not unusual. More people die in medical malpractice cases each year than in automobile accidents.
When Johanna finally came home from Brooks, her mother says it was like having a baby again. "We had to feed her, bathe her. It's like teaching a child to eat and be potty trained again. Before she was making good grades and now she had to learn how to write again and do simple arithmetic."
Johanna's short term memory is still so bad she has trouble remembering her daily activities.
Johanna's life is not the only one that has changed dramatically. Her parents, and a younger sister, Jacqueline have spent nearly every moment focused on Johanna, and nothing else. "Our life is built around Johanna's care and well being," said her father, a train dispatcher for CSX. "My last scheduled vacation was three years ago because I've used it all up for Johanna, and we've put 70,000 miles on our car and never left the state."
Mrs. Shirley has quit her job at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints to help care for Johanna, and she said, "I've had a 15 year old daughter (Jacqueline) robbed of her teenage years because we've had to spend our time with Johanna, and she has, too.".
While life has been very difficult, her mother Jeanne said the huge expense and time required to care for Johanna is not the hardest part.
"I see her bouncing in, vivacious and full of life and now just remembering the way she was before is fading and it makes me angry," said Mrs. Shirley.
Despite the difficulties, the Shirleys consider themselves fortunate because the new malpractice caps were enacted after Johanna's tragedy. In future cases experts say the new malpractice caps will be catastrophic.
"This has been very hard," said Mr. Shirley. "But, no matter how hard it is has been, I could never wish this would happen to anyone responsible for Johanna's situation, or for any legislator or anyone else. Unfortunately, it will happen to others. The caps will make it impossible for them to cope."
The new caps, which required several special sessions of the legislature to pass, was in reaction to a perception that Florida is in the midst of a crisis because the high cost of medical malpractice insurance and jury awards are causing doctors to leave the state or stop the practice of medicine. However, a congressional study released shortly after the caps were imposed a month ago disputed these claims, which were being made by the American and Florida Medical Associations.
Instead of a widespread crisis in Florida, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said, "The problems confirmed were limited to scattered, often rural, locations and in most cases providers identified long-standing factors in addition to malpractice pressures that affect the availability of services."
The GAO report said that reports of doctors leaving the state were anecdotal, "not extensive and in most cases exaggerated."
In addition to exaggerated claims of physicians fleeing the state over high costs of malpractice insurance, the GAO study reported that during the last two years, the number of licenses for doctors has increased and physicians per capita in Florida has not changed.
While doctors blame jury awards for the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, the GAO report cited other factors, including poor management by insurers. As interest rates dropped between 1998 and 2001 on bonds that comprise as much as 80 per cent of the malpractice insurers' investment portfolios, "a decrease in investment income meant that income from insurance premiums had to cover a larger share of insurers' costs," the report said.
In addition, the GAO said that vigorous competition for business during the 1990s caused medical malpractice insurers to offer prices that did not completely cover losses on that business. "As a result of this, some companies became insolvent or voluntarily left the market, reducing the downward competitive pressure on premium rates that had existed through the 1990s."
Traumatic Brain Injury Case - Recovery $195,000
A resident of an apartment complex suffered a mild traumatic brain injury when her clothes dryer fell from its stand above the washer and struck her in the head. The defendant denied liability, but we pursued the case to trial. The jury awarded our client adequate compensation. Recovered $195,000.
Medical Malpractice Case - $1.125 million
Infant suffered brain damage as a result of medical malpractice. Parents receive award for his future care. Recovered $1.125 million.
Florida OBTape Vaginal Sling Attorneys - Experienced defective medical device attorneys helping the victims of medical negligence and their families receive much needed compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced medical malpractice attorney, call our main office in Jacksonville today at 1.800.603.3640.