Jury Awards $12.1 Million to a Quadriplegic Minor
consumer injury lawyer | Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | No Comments »KANSAS CITY, Mo., Mar 16, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — In a landmark verdict a United States District Court for the District of Kansas jury awarded $12.1 million to a quadriplegic minor. After a seven-day trial and twenty hours of deliberation, the eight-person jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of the child in the case of “Midwest Trust vs. Lisa Gard M.D.”. The jury found that the emergency room doctor Lisa Gard, M.D. from a Kansas hospital was negligent in her assessment of the minor upon presentation in the emergency room.
Attorneys for the minor were Derek H. Potts, Timothy L. Sifers both from the Potts Law Firm and Jeffery M. Kuntz from Wagstaff & Cartmell. The trial was presided over by the Honorable Eric F. Melgren.
Counsel on behalf of the minor alleged that a child tested to have emergent blood pressure, complaining of severe posterior neck pain and right arm pain, should have been assessed for a neurological condition on the differential diagnosis to rule out any neurological problems. The Plaintiff further alleged that the misdiagnosis of strep throat that sent the child back home caused a significant delay in the detection of a hemorrhaging arteriovenous malformation (“AVM”) that was putting pressure on the child’s spinal cord. By the time the child returned to the hospital, she was suffering from extended paralysis and sent to Children’s Mercy Hospital where she was operated on to remove the AVM.
The defendant denied that she was negligent in any way and denied that an earlier transfer to another hospital would have improved the minor’s outcome, and denied the nature and extent of the minor’s injuries and damages.
After the verdict was returned by the jury, Derek H. Potts said, “Thousands of Americans die or are seriously injured each year as a result of diagnosis errors in emergency rooms. This verdict shows that Kansans will hold healthcare professionals fully responsible for these errors.” About Potts Law Firm The Potts Law firm, LLC is based in Kansas City, Missouri and represents plaintiffs in civil litigation including medical malpractice. For more information about the Potts law firm, please visit our Web site at http://www.defendingtheconsumer.com/.
