The average verdict in a Pennsylvania personal injury lawsuit where the jury awards damages is $749,973, according to a recent Jury Verdict Research study. The median jury verdict Pennsylvania paints a little different picture: $36,400.
James A. Goodyear, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, says that because Pennsylvania doctors win a defense verdict in 85 percent of malpractice lawsuits that go to trial, it may be that "too many claims are advancing that shouldn't."
Alternative view: good malpractice lawsuits settle before trial.
The Philadelphia Phillies mascot is the defendant in a lawsuit stemming from a fan's injuries at a minor league baseball game. Plaintiff's lawsuit alleges that the "Phillie Phanatic" climbed on top of her during a game in 2008 which causing Plaintiff arthritis to get worse which, Plaintiff believes, caused her to need a knee replacement.
Exacerbation of prior arthritis claims are incredibly tough because it so hard for the doctors to really state strong opinions as to whether a trauma accident caused her injuries to worsen. I also imagine there are liability problems. In these kind of case, I always fear the lawsuit is filed in part because it is a case against the Phille Phanatic and that sounds a little interesting so let's bring a case we otherwise would not. Again, I have no facts to support this but it does make you wonder when you hear cases with these kinds of facts.
One difficult issue medical malpractice lawyers in Pennsylvania, and all over the country, have is finding medical experts willing to testify against another doctor who has negligently injured a patient. The doctor has to be: (1) real world qualified, someone who the lawyer believes can speak to the issue authoritatively; (2) qualified in the eyes of the court; and (3) have the ability to effectively communicate all of this to a jury.
A Pennsylvania Superior Court found that in a recent opinion that plaintiff's malpractice lawyers did not meet the second prong of the test in a case involving a man who suffered a severe hematoma that formed outside an arterial wall of his brachial artery. After surgery to repair the condition, he lost the strength in his grip, and suffered nerve damage. The ER doctors are named in the malpractice lawsuit because the patient kept calling and returning to the ER but did not get appropriate follow-up care.
Plaintiff's malpractice lawyer submitted a certificate of merit from a neurologist and surgeon at Allegheny University Hospital and Temple University Hospital. But the court found that while the expert was a qualified neurosurgeon, he had insufficient training to testify about emergency room procedures.
Tough loss for Plaintiff.
Target is a defendant lawsuit in Pennsylvania with unimaginable facts: a wicker trunk bought at Target and used as a toy chest trapped a child's neck, cutting off her causing spastic quadriplegia, severe psychomotor mental retardation. If you are parent reading this and you did not swallow hard, you don't have a pulse. Just beyond awful.
The lawsuit claims Target should have warned about the risk and that the design of the product was defective: it should have had a lid support on the chest.
The Pittsburgh Injury and Disability Lawyer Blog has a good post on Westmoreland, Pennsylvania verdicts in 2007, providing a full list of verdicts.
A recent Jury Verdict Research study found that the median (midpoint of data, not average) jury award for personal injury trials in Pennsylvania is $40,974. Personal injury plaintiffs in Pennsylvania receive damages in 48% of tort cases that go to trial.
A Pennsylvania swim club has agreed to a settlement of $250,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the widow of a 72 year-old man who drowned during a party two years ago. According to the lawsuit filed in Allegheny County, Olympic Swim and Health Club violated Pennsylvania law by failing to have a lifeguard at the party.
A jury in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania awarded $1.88 million to a Dunmore woman in a cancer misdiagnosis medical malpractice lawsuit filed on behalf of her husband, who died of cancer in 2008. The jury found a urologist, a pathologist, and Wayne Memorial Hospital responsible for failing to diagnose the man with bladder cancer during several doctors’ visits complaining of urinary problems over a sixteen month period.
Cancer of the urinary bladder is the fourth most common malignancy among men, and the eighth most frequent among women. Urinary problems obviously do not necessarily mean a patient has cancer, but obviously this jury found that there was enough evidence where more should have been done when the patient presented with an inflamed and enlarged prostate.
This is a list of cancer misdiagnosis verdicts in Maryland.
The Maryland Malpractice Lawyer Blog has a post about a doctor's lawsuit claiming that he was wrongful terminated from an OB/GYN practice. The doctor who fired him claims, among other things, that the OB/GYN doctor failed to come clean about a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been filed against him in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania malpractice lawsuits dropped about 11 from 2004 to 2007. In Lackawanna County, medical malpractice lawsuits plummeted 58 percent between 2000 and 2007. There were 30 Lackawanna County malpractice lawsuits were filed in 2007, compared with 35 in 2006 and 71 in 2000. In Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Sullivan, Wyoming, Susquehanna and Wayne counties, medical malpractice lawsuits dropped from 125 in 2000 to 88 last year.
Many attribute the decline to new Pennsylvania malpractice law that requires that "independent doctors" certify medical malpractice lawsuits before they can proceed. I don't disagree with the premise of requiring a "certificate of merit" or other like mechanism before the filing of a medical malpractice lawsuit in Pennsylvania because I think it does what it should do in most cases: weed out malpractice lawsuits that should not be brought.
An Allegheny County jury in Pennsylvania has ordered the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to pay $5 million to a woman left brain-damaged after she was given eight times the appropriate amount of sodium she required to correct a chemical imbalance.
Plaintiff was diagnosed with an electrolyte deficiency and low sodium after an emergency room, according to her medical malpractice lawyers. The hospital planned to slowly correct her low sodium but accidently gave her a dose of eight times the amount she should have received.
The sodium overload caused permanent brain damage that has prevented plaintiff from returning to work, impaired her speech and made walking difficult, according to her malpractice attorneys.
You can read the full story on this case here.
A new hot topic in medical malpractice is infection cases. A Pennsylvania woman who allegedly contracted a staph infection which that resulted in facial scarring while she was working as a prison guard at Graterford Prison in 2003 settled her claim or $226,000. Alas, this was a not a medical malpractice claim but a workers' compensation claim against the prison.
You can read the full article here which includes a picture of the scarring. Obviously, a successful medical malpractice claim would have resulted in a larger recovery 90% of the time. Proving a workers comp claim - that the staph came from the prison - will generally not be that difficult for an evidentiary standpoint. The hard part of a hospital staph infection case is proving negligence.
Pennsylvania's highest court last week in Fitzpatrick v. Natter that circumstantial evidence provided by a plaintiff's spouse in a medical malpractice lawsuit is sufficient to get past summary judgment in an informed consent malpractice claim. The court found that a Pennsylvania Superior Courty had erred in concluding that Pennsylvania's informed consent law required the Plaintiff to testify herself about information that was not provided by her doctor.
Our lawyers are continuing to accept Medtronic defective lead recall cases. Our law firm has been reviewing Medtronic lead cases for almost a year and I’m amazed by the continued flow of cases although they are slowing down. If you have a Medtronic case you would like our lawyers to review the Medtronic class action, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free Medtronic Internet consultation.
My two volume treatise Insurance Settlements is now available from James Publishing. The book discusses how to position a lawyer's car accident, truck accident, medical malpractice or product liability case to the best possible settlement at every step along the way (until the state's high court affirms the judgment).
Click on the James Publishing link. If you have any comments on the book, please email me at ronmiller@millerandzois.com under the subject "Insurance Settlements Comments."
Our lawyers are reviewing Byetta claims after the FDA announced this week that the diabetes drug has been linked to severe pancreatic problems in dozens of patients. On Monday, the FDA warned patients taking Byetta to discontinue use if they develop symptoms of the disorder. Further the FDA said that doctor prescribing Byetta should consider other prescription options for patients with a history of pancreas problems.
Since Byetta was introduced into the United States in 2005, more than 700,000 patients have used the Byetta.
Our lawyers are now exploring potential Byetta lawsuits. If you would like to discuss your case with a Byetta lawyer, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consulation/case evaluation (or even to answer any question you may have). For more information on Byetta and the concerns with Byetta, click here.
Last week, Digitek manufacturer Actavis Totowa recalled over 65 different drugs made at their New Jersey manufacturing plant. The list of recalled drugs (in some form or another) includes such generic drugs as Bellamine, Buspirone, Carisoprodol, Oxycodone Meperidine, and Rifampin. This strengthens the conclusion that the New Jersey plant that made these drugs may be the cause of irregularities in Actavis medications.
In April 2008, Actavis recalled Digitek, a drug prescribed to treat heart failure and irregular heartbeat because it was discovered that Digitek tablets appeared to have double the thickness – and likely double the active ingredient – listed on the label. When Digitek is given in abnormally high doses it can lead to digitalis toxicity which, paradoxically, worsens the problems Digitek is intended to treat, causing nausea or lower blood pressure and other side effects from the Digitek overdose that can lead to the increased risk of stroke or a heart attack.
If you would like to speak to a Digitek recall lawyer about a potential Digitek lawsuit, call 1-800-553-8000. For more information on the Digitek overdose recall or a free consultation on your potential Digitek case, click here.
Zimmer's Durom Cup hip implants are likely to be the subject of a good number of lawsuits from patients with the Zimmer implants. But they will not be the only ones. Apparently, Zimmer’s own shareholders may agree that Zimmer left its hip implant on the market way too long. Last week, shareholders of Zimmer stock filed a class action in Indiana. Interestingly, the lawsuit seeks damages for shareholders who purchased stock between January 28, 2008 and July 21, 2008. This tells our Zimmer hip implant recall lawyers that these shareholders believe that Zimmer knew or should have known and issued a recall on or before January 28, 2008.
If your Zimmer Durom hip resurfacing cup was defective, call our Zimmer hip implant lawyers at 1-800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.
More information on the Zimmer Hip Implant Recall
History of the Zimmer Durom Cup Hip Implant Recall
More information on the Zimmer hip implant recall lawsuits
Jury Verdict Research(r) study reports that
rotator cuff injuries reached a 7-year high in 2006 with a compensatory award median of $72,667. This is almost 50% higher than previous reported settlements and verdicts in rotator cuff injury cases.
Our lawyers have never understood while the national data in these cases was so low. Washington D.C. rotator cuff injuries have averaged well over $100,000 for rotator cuff settlements and verdicts so we have never understood why the national average was as low as it has been. In any event, for whatever reason, rotator cuff verdicts are on the rise.
Our lawyers handle rotator cuff injury cases throughout the United States. Our lawyers have handled scores of rotator cuff injuries in car and truck accidents, typically in side collision or "T-bone" accidents. Our lawyers believe that insurance companies do not give fair value in most rotator cuff injury cases and our lawyers will fight to get you the financial compensation you deserve. Call a rotator cuff lawyer to protect you at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation and case evaulation.
Related Posts
What Is the Value of Your Personal Injury Claim? (how the value of rotator cuff and other person injury settlements are calculated)
Sample Demand Letter (sample letter demanding settlement in a personal injury case)
Handling Your Claim Without a Lawyer (tips and pratfalls)
