The A.W. Smith Law Firm attained a $4.75 million settlement in a birth injury case earlier in 2010.

*The terms of the settlement required confidentiality regarding the names and all indicators of the defendants, so those details have been removed from this blog.

Plaintiffs John and Jane Doe went to the hospital to have their first child delivered on August 20, 2007. Jane Doe was in labor for 16 hours before finally giving birth. During that time, there were indications that the baby was going through periods of distress. After birth, it was determined that Baby Doe was deprived of oxygen while still in the uterus long enough for him to develop severe cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy is a disease that is untreatable and can develop during child birth due to lack of oxygen to the baby's brain. Often, it can be easily prevented by monitoring the fetus's fetal heart rate on a monitor. Due to the amount of time that Baby Doe was deprived of oxygen, he suffers from not only cerebral palsy, but seizures, persistent encephalopathy, diffuse brain atrophy, marked hypotonia in the trunk and lower limbs, and brisk deep tendon reflexes.

The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the hospital, the obstetrician (OBGYN), and the birthing center nurse. Plaintiffs claimed that the hospital failed to properly use the fetal monitoring equipment, failed to recognize the signs of Baby Doe's distress, failed to have staff on hand that knew how to address the health problems once they had been realized, and failed to perform an emergency C-section.

The case was settled in early 2010 for $4,750,000.

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The Illinois Supreme Court made a ruling this week that ended caps on pain and suffering in medical malpractice awards. The ruling could be a very positive thing for victims of medical malpractice in Missouri, where a similar debate over whether or not the current $350,000 caps is constitutional is taking place.

One attorney who argued before the Missouri Supreme Court claimed that limiting non-economic damages should be ruled unconstitutional. He intends to formally notify the Missouri Supreme Court of the ruling in Illinois in hopes that it will encourage the judges to also remove the cap in Missouri.

Many attorneys and victims think the cap should be lifted because it indirectly leads to placing a higher value on wealthy people's lives than poor peoples. While families of wealthy victims can recover more money from lost wages, poor people recover very little in the form of lost wages, thus making their suits worth less.

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An Ozark couple has recently settled their Missouri medical malpractice suit with the University of Missouri Hospital for $2.5 million.

Susan Martin, now 49, was being treated at the hospital in Columbia, Missouri for dehydration due to a gastrointestinal -related condition. In an effort to rehydrate her, doctors ordered an IV of nutrients. The IV was intended to go into a subclavian vein, but was mistakenly put in her subclavian artery. This mistake caused fatty blockages to flow to Martin's brain for five days straight. The blockages caused serious and permanent damage to Martin, including numerous devastating strokes and other neurological and cognitive destruction.

Martin is now physically and mentally handicapped. The doctors argued that the strokes and other problems could have been caused by pre-existing conditions, but Martin's Missouri personal injury attorney argued that it was due to the direct negligence of her medical care providers.

The University Hospital made no comment regarding this Missouri medical malpractice suit.

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A diabetic patient claimed that he was not properly cared for during and after a routine fasting blood test causing hypoglycemia and disorientation, resulting in a single-car rollover accident, his need for surgery and his inability to work, resulting in a $400,000 settlement.

The patient, a 53-year-old man with diabetes, had been assigned to take a fasting blood test which required him to not eat the night prior and morning of the test, or take his insulin the morning of. He was instructed not to take his insulin because it is used to lower blood sugar levels in response to eating and taking insulin without eating can induce hypoglycemia.

When the plaintiff arrived at the clinic for his blood test he was immediately taken to do the blood work, a process which took approximately ten minutes, and then released. The plaintiff left the office, and at 8:24 a.m. the results indicated that his blood sugar levels were below 50 mg/dl, what is considered to be a 'panic level'. At 9a.m. a patient came into the office and told clinic employees that there was a man in the parking lot who was confused and disoriented. By the time the employees went to the parking lot, another patient reported a man with similar symptoms had just driven away. At 9:10a.m. the sheriff called the plaintiff's wife to inform her that her husband had been involved in a single-car rollover crash. Paramedics reported that the plaintiff's blood sugar levels were at 24 mg/dl. The plaintiff's wife took him to a hospital where he was diagnosed with having a stable T12 compression fracture. He was observed for several days and then released.

A suit was filed claiming that the clinic had not properly diagnosed the plaintiff's 'hypoglycemic unawareness' (a documented illness where a patient becomes hypoglycemic, but doesn't realize their impaired mental state) and that the clinic employees were untrained and unqualified at recognizing signs of the illness. The plaintiff also claimed that the clinic lacked policies and procedures for testing diabetic patients, given that they know diabetic patients are at high risk for hypoglycemia. The case asserted diabetic patients should be given a snack and test results should be reviewed before they are allowed to leave the testing facility. The clinic argued that the patient must have taken his insulin, disregarding his doctor's orders, to produce a drop that quickly in blood sugar levels, and that it was the patients responsibility to understand their disease and risks.

The A.W. Smith Law Firm reached a settlement about a month before trial for $400,000.

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A family claiming that doctors missed the correct diagnosis of an aortic dissection, leading to a family member's death, reached a $2 million settlement.

John Doe, 58, went to a rural hospital emergency room on a Friday evening complaining of jaw pain, chest pain, arm and leg numbness and difficulty speaking. His symptoms suddenly disappeared after fifteen minutes, but testing was done and indicated the possibility or coronary artery disease. Doe was transferred to Kansas City hospital for specialized cardiac care. A resident doctor examined Doe (who had no other complaints aside from the fifteen minute period of previous symptoms) and ordered an echocardiogram for Doe the next morning. The echocardiogram was not performed as the resident had ordered, as the echo lab was not usually open on the weekends. However, since Doe saw a cardiologist that morning, nurses assumed that it was not necessary to perform the echocardiogram.

When examined Saturday morning, the doctor found that Doe's symptoms were indicative of typical coronary artery disease and recommended that Doe remain on his current medication plan until an angiogram could be done Monday morning. After further examination, the cardiologist also noted a slight diastolic heart murmur near the left sterna border of the heart. He informed Doe and his wife that there might be a slight bacterial infection of the valve, which would explain the murmur. However, an echocardiogram was ordered for Monday to determine if there were any problems with the aorta or aortic valve to rule out "aortic incompetence due to aneurism or dissection" anyway. This condition typically leads to death within minutes. Doe died at 6 p.m. Saturday evening. Had an echocardiogram been performed Saturday morning as prescribed by the resident doctor, Doe could have had life-saving surgery.

Doe's wife and daughter filed suit alleging the emergency room physician, resident physician, and cardiologist all missed the correct diagnosis, and that the symptoms presented should have warranted a CT scan of the chest to rule out aortic dissection. Furthermore, the plaintiffs' cardiology expert was critical of the fact that, although the cardiologist considered aortic dissection a possibility, nothing was done to rule it out. Defendants argued that the symptoms were actually more consistent with coronary artery disease and that even if the correct diagnosis had been made, Doe would not have survived the necessary surgery.
A month before trial, the A.W. Smith Law Firm, PC secured a $2 million settlement for the family.

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