Articles Posted in Verdicts & Settlements

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Searching for a lawyer who practices in the area of medical malpractice in Chicago, Illinois is as easy as opening up you web browser and Googling “medical malpractice chicago.” When i ran this search term Google returned 275,000 search results. The first page of results alone listed more then 30 lawyers, including those who have purchased sponsored ads. I know a lot of these lawyers, and some of them do practice in the area of medical malpractice and are very fine attorneys. The vast majority of others are “brokers”, business men who earn a living referring cases to other lawyers who are capable of actually working on a case and expecting part of the fee as a result of finding the case.

At Goldberg & Goldberg we have been practicing in the area of medical malpractice in Chicago for more then forty years. We do not broker cases out to other lawyers. We work up and try our client’s cases ourselves. Our results speak for themselves. We have collected almost $1 billion in compensation for our clients.

When you interview a lawyer that you have found on the internet about his ability to handle your case you are making an intensely important decision. Can this lawyer carry my banner and accomplish the herculean task of bringing a hospital or doctor to his knees in court. In order to do this you should ask a few basic questions of your potential lawyer to see if he has the right stuff to handle your case. If the lawyer hems and haws when answering your direct question you should consider finding someone else to represent you. Here are some sample questions you should ask:

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Trying lawsuits in Chicago at the Cook County Courthouse located at The Richard J. Daley Center is a risky proposition. Even though anti-consumer groups like the Chamber of Commerce and other insurance company proxies have identified Illinois as a judicial “hellhole” the fact of the matter is that injured people face an uphill battle whenever they go to the courthouse.

According to statistics published by the Clerk of the Circuit Court and the presiding Judge of the Law Division, Judge William Maddux, the Law Division had 14,713 new jury filings, and 17,548 pending jury cases — numbers that are fairly consistent with the last several years. And in the three-year period used for this review of Law Division jury verdicts, the number of verdicts each year ranged from 402 to 475. Among those cases juries ruled for defendants in 71 percent of the medical malpractice suits in that same three-year period. And comparing 2007 to 2008, the plaintiff win percentage in medical malpractice verdicts fell from 39 to 18 percent.

While it is true that the vast majority of lawsuits are settled by the parties prior to a jury verdict, those plaintiffs that take a matter to the jury for final resolution face a greater chance of leaving the courthouse without being compensated. At Goldberg & Goldberg our record of success in the Cook County law Division is without compare. We have settled and tried to verdict more then 135 cases that have settled for more then $1 million dollars, including the largest personal injury verdict ever in the State of Illinois, $127,700,000. Winning a case against a doctor or a hospital is an uphill battle. We work up and try our own cases in the firm unlike other lawyers who advertise their experience and results and then refer cases to actual trial lawyers like Goldberg & Goldberg.

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On June 5, 2009, the First District Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Chicago affirming a trial court ruling by Judge Daniel M. Locallo clarifying certain issues related to the Illinois Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling in Gilbert v. Sycamore Memorial Hospital,156 Ill.2d 511, 622 N.E.2d 788 (1993).  The opinion is captioned Spiegelman v. Victory Memorial Hospital, 1-07-3195 (1st Dist. June 5, 2009).

In 1993 the Illinois Supreme Court recognized that a hospital can be held vicariously liable for the conduct of a non employee doctor provided that the hospital 1) acted in a manner that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the individual who was alleged to be negligent was an employee or agent of the hospital; 2) created an appearance of authority and 3) the plaintiff acted in reliance upon the conduct of the hospital or its agent.  Gilbert v. Sycamore Memorial Hospital,156 Ill.2d 511, 622 N.E.2d 788 (1993).  

Now, the First District Appellate Court, which covers Chicago and Cook County, has decided another apparent agency case, Spiegelman v. Victory Memorial Hospital, 1-07-3195 (1st Dist. June 5, 2009), further clarifying the higher court’s earlier apparent agency rulings.  The court ruled that the mere existence of a release signed by the plaintiff identifying its physicians as independent contractors does not, in and of itself, create an insurmountable hurdle to the holding out element.  The court reasoned that based on the totality of facts and the ambiguity of the consent form, a jury could reasonably conclude that the consent was ambiguous and therefore did not adequately inform the plaintiff of her doctor’s independent status.

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A Wisconsin jury awarded $2.1 million to a Chicago, Illinois man who was the victim of medical malpractice in southern Wisconsin.  49 year old Daniel Nelson was injured in a motorcycle accident near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin almost nine years ago.

While rehabbing in a Burlington, Wisconsin hospital after the accident, Nelson’s tracheotomy tube became obstructed.  Doctors waited too long before calling for an emergency team skilled in airway management to clear the tube.  As a result, he nearly died and was in a coma for weeks.  Nelson has since partially recovered, and now suffers from significant speech and memory problems.

Wisconsin.jpgThe jury awarded Nelson $994,716 in medical expenses, $1 million for pain, suffering and disability, $50,000 to Nelson’s wife for loss of consortium and $65,000 to Nelson’s son,  Nelson has had multiple surgeries since the medical malpractice occured and is now confined to a wheelchair.

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A Tennessee jury awarded a 33 year old woman $12 million dollars yesterday in what is being reported as one of the states largest ever jury awards.  The jury returned the verdict against a local gastroenterologist who left the girl brain damaged after a procedure that was meant to diagnose bowel problems.

The injury occured when the plaintiff suffered a tear in her small intestine during an edoscopic exam.  The doctor defended himself by trying to blame the victim for not going to the emergency room quickly enough once she began to experience symptoms of the tear.

Goldberg & Goldberg is a Chicago, Illinois law firm representing the victims of medical malpractice and other serious personal injury matters for over forty years.

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The Illinois Appellate Court, First District has extended damages in Wrongful Birth lawsuits to include the damages the victim will sustain after reaching the age of majority.  This is a significant extension beyond the victim’s usual rights in these types of cases which were first recognized in Illinois in Siemieniec v. Lutheran General Hospital, 117 Ill.2d 230 (1987). 

Now parents of severely disabled children who were born with disabilities due to the negligence of a doctor who failed to recognize the same in utero can recover damages necessary to care for their disabled child after that child reaches the age of majority.  The court stated that from a public policy perspective the financial burden of this type of care should be borne by the tortfeasor and not the state or the chilld’s parents.  Additionally, it now appears that the law in Illinois might recognize damages for the negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Justice O’Brien wrote “that such claims are judged by the ”zone-of-physical danger” rule set in Rickey v. Chicago Transit Authority, 98 Ill.2d 546 (1983), which provides that before someone can recover for emotional injuries stemming from the tortious injury of a third person, they must show that they were endangered by the defendants’ negligence and suffered a physical injury because of it” Clark v. Children’s Mem. Hosp., 1-08-0610 (Ill.App. 4-9-2009)

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The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered litigants in medical malpractice cases to take steps to resolve those matters in order to decrease the court’s backlog.  Two senior judges have been assigned in Clark County to conduct a settlement marathon in May in the hopes of resolving the 216 oldest cases on the court’s docket.  The Judges plan to hold up to eighteen settlement conferences a week.

Apparently Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, has more then 400 medical malpractice cases pending statewide.  This number seems relatively small in comparison to the number of cases we have pending in Cook County, Illinois.

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corruption.jpgJessica Fargen reported in today’s Boston Herald that a Boston Medical Malpractice defense attorney hired by one of the area’s largest malpractice insurance companies advised a doctor that he could avoid being served with a summons in a major medical malpractice lawsuit if he left the country.

Dr. Eran Bar-Mer finished his fellowship at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center and was travelling cross-country with the intention to emmigrate to Israel.  Allegedly his insurance company appointed lawyer advised him that he was “lucky” to be leaving the country and the jurisdiction of the court.  He was ultimately served with the lawsuit when he returned to Boston on business two months later.

Legal proceedings are adversarial in nature.  Most lawyers believe in punching hard but punching fair.  When a member of the bar advises a defendant whom he represents to leave the jurisdiction of the court to avoid service things have gone a little too far.  Hopefully this lawyer has simply lost his way.  It is sad when the greed and corruption that has become pervasive in corporate america taints the legal profession.

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Our clients often ask us about damages in medical malpractice cases.  Sometimes they tell us that they aren’t interested in financial compensation and only want to do something to make sure that their doctor doesnt hurt anybody else.

The remedy in civil medical malpractice is financial.  When we proceed with a medical malpractice lawsuit we go to court seeking money damages.  What those damages will be is ultimately a decision that will be made by a jury after being presented with evidence of both economic and pecuniary loss. 

Some of our clients are happy to learn that each and every malpractice claim is reported to a national databank which is more or less a doctor’s permanent record.  Additionally, the Illinois Department of Professional Responsibility investigates every malpractice claim that goes to verdict or settles to determine if the doctor’s license ought to be affected.

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We like to take note of outstanding verdicts and settlements from around the country on our blog.  Today an Arizona jury awarded $11 million to the widow of a 36 year old victim of a traumatic brain injury that occured at an assisted living facility.

While a resident at the facility his caregivers force fed him plastic bags, catsup packets, paper towels and candy wrappers which caused an obstruction of his GI tract.  These foreign body obstructions directly caused the patients death.

Every patient at every facility deserves to be cared for in a humane and dignified way. 

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