By now, many people are familiar with the news that a cardiologist at St. Joseph's Hospital in Towson, Maryland has been accused of inserting coronary artery stents that were not medically necessary, exposing hundreds of his patients to harm from long-term use of blood thinners and the risk of the possibility of heart attack or stroke.  St. Joseph's recently sent letters to Dr. Mark Midei's patients, alerting them to the possbility that the stents placed in their hearts were unnecessary.

It appears that the situation at St. Joseph's may not be an isolated event.  Dr. Mehmood Patel, a cardiologist in Louisiana, discovered that his partner, Dr. Christopher Mallavarapu, was also placing stents in his patient's coronary arteries that had no blockage in them.  After reviewing Dr. Mallavarapu's files, and discovering that the unnecessary stents were fraudulently billed to Medicare, Dr. Patel contacted the federal government which ultimately convicted Dr. Mallavarapu of health care fraud and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The stents are placed without any oversight by another physician or a radiologist to confirm that the stent was actually needed.  Further, even though the nurses who assist the cardiologist may know that the physician is committing fraud, they are reluctant to speak up, fearing for their jobs given the amount of money a cardiologist brings to his hospital for inserting the stents.  Until there is a better system of oversight and review of the procedures physicians perform, patients will continue to be at risk of harm by these greedy docs.

In what is considered to be the largest award of damages in a medical malpractice case in Minnesota, and one of the largest in the United States, a jury has awarded $23.2 million on February 11, 2010 to the mother of a baby who suffered serious permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy during her birth.

The lawsuit alleged that the defendant, Dr. Gabrielle Olson (who was a family medicine physician and not an obstetrician),along with several nurses, failed to recognize obvious signs of fetal distress, failed to ensure that the baby received enough oxygen during the delivery and failed to perform an emergency C-section.  Dr. Olson, along with Affilitated Community Medical Centers (ACMC) and Rice Memorial Hospital were sued.  Dr. Olson was later dismissed from the case, as she was considered to have been an agent of ACMC.  The jury found that ACMC was 80% negligent and Rice Memorial 20% negligent.

The baby, born in 2007, now suffers seizures, spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and other neurologic impairment, and will require lifetime medical care as a result of the negligence of the defendants.  The verdict encompasses $1.7 million for past medical expenses, $10 million for future care, $10 million for emotional distress, and $1.5 million for lost earning capacity.  Both defendants are expected to appeal the verdict.

On February 16, 2010, a Fairfax County, VA jury awarded nearly $3 million to the family of a man who died from an undiagnosed espophgeal (throat) tear.  Hector Alvarez, who was 52, had difficulty swallowing a piece of meat in July of 2006.  He went to Inova HeathPlex where a radiologist diagnosed him with a hiatal hernia.  He was initally treated with oral medications, but his pain continued.   It was not until the next afternoon that his physicians spotted the perforated exophagus.  Before the surgery to repair the tear could be performed, Mr. Alvarez went into cardiac arrest and died.

His wife filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the radiologist and the anesthesiology group who admnistered anesthesia ten days before Mr. Alvarez arrested and died.  Trial was held, and the jury awarded $2,933,500 which included the decedent's future lost wages.  Mr. Alvarez was earning $100,000 at the time of his death.  The attorney for the plaintiffs was John Sellinger.

There is a cap on the amount of damages that can be recovered in Virginia.  Currently the cap is $1.85 million.  Juries are never told of the existence of a cap during the trial.  The verdict will likely be reduced on post-trial motions.  

On February 19, 2010, Maryland's highest court issued its decision in the case of Houghton v. Forrest, holding that a Baltimore City police officer cannot claim immunity from suit for intentional acts of assault, battery, false arrest and false imprisionment.  This ruling is an important victory for Maryland citizens who are subjected to these types of harm at the hands of a public official.

In the Houghton case, the officer had witnessed a drug sale in Baltimore City while monitoring a security camera feed.  One of the participants in the drug deal was a woman wearing a black jacket, dark jeans and was carrying a red umbrella.  Houghton instructed another officer to arrest the alleged drug sale participants. He lost sight of the woman during the arrest. While continuing to scan the video feed, Houghton saw a woman standing at a bus stop, wearing different colored pants and jacket, but carring a red umbrella.  Even though this woman clearly did not match the description of the woman first identified in the video, Houghton instructed the officer to arrest her.  She was evenutually released from custody and subsequently filed suit against Houghton and the Baltimore City Police Department, alleging both negligence and a variety of intentional torts.  A jury awarded her more than $180,000.00 in damages.  The officer appealed the verdict, arguing that he was immune from suit for intentional tort  and because there was not sufficient evidence presented that he had acted with malice, which he argued is a necessary element to prove intentional harm.

The Court of Special Appeals, Maryland's intermediate appellate court, disagreed with Houghton, finding that a public official is not immune from suit for intentional torts, but also found that there was not sufficient evidence presented to find the officer acted with malice. Both parties appealed this decision

The Court of Appeals made clear in its decision that public officials, like this police officer, cannot seek immunity from suit if their actions are found to be intentional.  The Court did not specifically decide the issue as to whether sufficient evidence was presented to prove malice because the Court found that under the Local Government Tort Claims Act, the government is responsible to pay any judgment against the officer so long as the judgment did not include punitive damages, which requires a finding of malice.  In this case, the jury did not award punitive damages.

This case is important for the citizens of Maryland.  Victims of police brutality and misconduct may recover damages from these officers without the possiblity that the officers will try to hide behind the "immunity shield".

A Baltimore City jury has awarded $812,000.00 to a former employee of the Wal Mart in Port Covington.  The jury found that Tanika Burroughs, a cashier at the store, was wrongfully accused of conspiring with shoplifters at the store in December of 2007.

Wal Mart had accused Ms. Burroughs of being complicit in a shoplifiting scheme which involved changing the pricing on items which were then presented to her as the cashier for check-out.  Ms. Burroughs claimed that she suspected the shoplifing and reported it to her supervisors.  She was arrested, and subsequently fired from Wal Mart.  Ms. Burroughs sued Wal Mart for false arrest, lander and false light and malicious prosecution.  The jury was likely swayed by the video of the incident, which showed everything that occurred during the incident.

The jury awarded $750,000.00 in compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages against the individucal and corporate defendants.

With the absence of a supermajority in the Senate, President Obama is faced with the prospect of reconciliation or compromise in order to get a healthcare bill on his desk. Trial lawyers and other interest groups, however, are urging the President not to compromise on his prior position that tort reform would not be part of any negotiations to get a healthcare bill passed. Some believe, however, the President is wavering and is heading in the direction of giving in to the Republican's top priority of getting significant tort reform measures added as part of a "bipartisan" healthcare bill.

The White House plans on posting a revised healthcare reform proposal on February 25^th, before a scheduled bipartisan healthcare summit. Many are curious as to whether this revised proposal will contain tort reform measures such as absolute caps on noneconomic damages. Many strategists believe that tort reform is the only "olive branch" that will generate significant Republican support for a healthcare bill.

According to a February 14^th article in the TheHill.com, many strategists are evaluating recent remarks by the President suggesting that tort reform could be an area of compromise in a bipartisan healthcare bill, but suggest they are uncertain exactly what the President means by a "middle ground" on such a compromise, which he has mentioned several times. Some believe he will not drastically change his position against absolute damages caps, although the President did suggest he could embrace a proposal that might "make my party a little bit uncomfortable." This would not be the first time he has gone against the will of his own party in making deals unpopular with the Democratic party.

Tort reform at the federal level is bad public policy. Many states already have in place significant reforms in the form of caps on noneconomic damages, immunity provided to certain emergency medical providers and first responders, and expert certification requirements before a plaintiff may file a medical malpractice case in a state court. Those reforms arguably place an unfair burden on the injured victim to the benefit of the tortfeasor. Many state caps are being challenged on constitiutional "separation of powers" grounds. Two weeks ago, Illinois declared its legislatively created cap on noneconomic damages unconstitutional and other states, including Maryland, have cases before their state supreme courts, which make similar challenges.

Federally instituted tort reforms will generate more challenges and litigation and will be of limited significance in the state court systems in this County. The time for wheeling and dealing healthcare reform must come to an end. It's time for Congress to get its act together and pass comprehensive healthcare reform without all the pork and add-ons being proposed.

On February 5, 2010, a Baltimore City jury returned a verdict in the amount of $250,000.00 against Johns Hopkins Hospital and in favor of the parents of a 17-year-old girl who suffered from a rare disorder which prevents her body from aging.

Brooke Greenberg had been a long-standing patient at Hopkins, which treated her regularly for her condition.  She was scheduled for surgery to replace her feeding tube in March of 2007.  Her father discovered her unattended in a swing in a hallway with inexplicable bruising. The jury was likely swayed by the conflicting testimony of the nurses called to testify, the alterations to the medical records and the photographic evidence of the injuries.

Of interest, Brooke Greenberg and her familiy had been the subjects of a documentary on The Learning Channel, entitled "Child Frozen in Time." 

On February 4, 2010, in the case of Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, Docket Nos. 105741 and 105745, the Supreme Court of Illinois struck down the cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, holding that the cap, which had limited damages to $500,000.00 for doctors and $1,000,000.00 for hospitals, is unconstitutional because the law violates "separation of powers by allowing lawmakers to interfere with a judge's ability to reduce verdicts."  The Supreme Court noted that such a cap impedes a jury's right to establish reasonable damages.

Illinois joins Ohio, Alabama, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Kansas in declaring that caps on non-economic damages are unconstitutional.  The Court of Appeals in Maryland has thus far rejected this argument and currently, damages for pain and suffering and other, non-economic harm are capped.  The amount recoverable depends on the year in which the malpractice occurred.  The cap is raised by $15,000.00 per year.

A verdict in the amount of $5.9 million dollars was reached today in favor of a 32 year-old woman against a vending company defendant.  The Defendant had hired a crane to remove a pool table from the second floor of a bar.  To prepared for the move, a portion of a fire escape rail was removed and tied back with a section of clothesline.  Three years later, the plaintiff, attending a party at the bar, was on the fire escape landing and was shoved into the tied-on railing when a door was opened.  The railing gave way and the woman fell 15 feet onto the concrete below.  She suffered a severe spinal cord injury. The jury awarded $381,228.00 in past medical costs, $2,532,775.00 in future medical costs, $26,875.00 in lost wages, and $2,971,750.00 in pain and suffering (non-economic) damages.  The trial was presided over by Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon in Baltimore City Circuit Court.  The law firm of Fick & May represented the plaintiff. It is likely that the defendant will seek to reduce the portion of the verdict awarded for pain and suffering to comply with the maximum amount allowable for non-economic damages permitted under Maryland law, known as the "cap".

The Maryland Institute for Continuing Professional Education of Lawyers, MICPEL, announced today that it will be closing after 34 years of operations. Started in 1976 as joint collaboration between the University of Baltimore and University of Maryland Schools of Law, MICPEL's mission was to provide continuing legal education at a low cost to Maryland's practitioners and non-lawyer legal professionals. In a statement released today, MICPEL trustees cited outside competition from for-profit legal education businesses and the "recent economic meltdown" over the past several years as reasons for its planned closure.

Continuing legal education in Maryland is not mandatory, unlike many other states that require a certain number of education hours as a prerequisite for the lawyers who practice in those states. According to a survey disseminated under the direction of the Court of Appeals last year, most Maryland practitioners do not favor required continuing legal education. Despite such disapproval, one is left to wonder why mandatory CLE is not required since there is no downside to such a requirement and only serves to better legal representation in the state. MICPEL certainly would have a place in such a scheme. For now, though, an institution that has provided so much good to so many lawyers, will be closing its doors, and lawyers will continue to participate in CLE seminars at their option.