A medical malpractice case in which we obtained a substantial monetary settlement paid by a prestigious teaching hospital and one of its attending doctors resulting from the poisoning death of one of its patients.
The Hospital and doctor were caring for an elderly man after a routine surgical procedure. The surgery went well but two days later, the patient had an acute attack of gout. The doctor treating the patient had no experience treating gout and delegated the responsibility to a Hospital resident doctor in training. That doctor ordered that the gout medication, colchicine, be administered in a dosage that was 7 times the safe limit. Neither the Hospital pharmacy or the nursing staff questioned the order and the excessive dose of medication was given.
Within two days, the patient began experiencing signs and symptoms of colchicine poisoning. None of the consulting specialists considered colchicine as the cause of the man’s altered and rapidly deteriorating condition. He continued to receive an additional excess doses of the drug until just hours before he died. The Hospital personnel and medical staff never informed the patient’s family that colchicine caused his deterioration or death.
A New York State Department of Health investigation uncovered the excessive dosage. The Bronx Injury Lawyers, Reibman & Weiner was hired to prosecute a medical malpractice lawsuit against those responsible for the medication error that caused the patient’s death. The Hospital and doctor involved denied the allegations. In pretrial testimony, the doctors involved all claimed they knew nothing about colchicine and, even after the patient died, never investigated the use of colchicine or the cause of their own patient’s death.
We pursued the action in the face of these constant denials of responsibility and prepared the case for trial. As the jury was seated and prepared the hear the evidence, the Hospital and attending doctor offered a substantial sum to settle the case. The man’s family was present in Court and agreed to the settlement rather than relive the pain and suffering that their loved one experienced before his death.
The City of New York paid a substantial settlement to the family of a woman who died because the City supplied old expired defibrillator batteries to EMS personnel. Despite warnings in 36 previous cases in which 31 people died during a three year period, the City of New York continued to use unapproved and expired batteries in the defibrillators used on EMS ambulances. As a result, when the ambulance crews tried to use their defibrillators to shock patients’ hearts back into a normal heartbeat, the defibrillators failed because the batteries were dead. On August 12, 2000, Mrs. T (names changed for privacy), a 40 year-old mother, became the 32nd fatality in a three year period as a result of the City’s failure to heed repeated warnings and instructions from the manufacturer of the defibrillator, the Laerdal Heartstart 3000.
In a lawsuit we brought on behalf of the family, the City was fighting and delaying for six years until the trial started in 2007. The jury heard the evidence we discovered during pretrial proceedings that the City received written warnings from the defibrillator manufacturer on 36 separate occasions to only use the manufacturer’s batteries and to never use batteries that were more than 2 years old. Despite the previous warnings, when a Laerdal technician examined the defibrillator used to treat Mrs. T, he found that one of the batteries was over six years old and one was over 10 years old.
The incident occurred when Mrs T and her mother were stuck in traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway. Just as an ambulance pulled up along side of the stuck vehicle, Mrs. T slumped over. The paramedics attended to her immediately. They determined that Mrs. T’s heart could be shocked back into a normal rhythm and applied the defibrillator. The first battery failed to deliver a shock. A second, backup, battery was used and that, too, failed. Mrs. T was then transported to Jamaica Hospital where her heart was started. The forty minutes that elapsed between the time when Mrs. T’s heart stopped and when it was restarted at the hospital deprived her brain of oxygen and she never fully regained consciousness. She died eight months later, survived by her husband and eight year old daughter.
The City tried to have the case thrown out before trial but we defeated that attempt. The City appealed that decision, further delaying the trial, and we were victorious on appeal. The City had no choice now but to have all the evidence out in a public trial.
Incredibly, the City defended the case by claiming it has no responsibility to a patient who is unconscious. We pointed out that if that were the case, then the City is really trying to apply different standards of care to different types of patients. For example, anyone who is considered legally incompetent, like an unconscious person, would fall under the rule the City is trying to create. The same rule would include children, mentally disabled people, Alzheimer’s patients, and intoxicated persons. We argued that is, and should be, recognized as a preposterous argument.
Regarding the trial, Mr. Reibman noted in his closing argument to the jury that the evidence of incompetence on the City’s part is overwhelming. There is simply no good explanation for why the City failed to supply its ambulances with proper working batteries. You can buy them from a catalog or online. He also pointed out that any qualified and honest doctor will tell you that every minute is critical when it comes to reviving someone’s heart and getting oxygen to their brain. In this case, the paramedics were on the scene immediately and started treatment. All their efforts were wasted because the City gave them bad batteries. Had the batteries worked, Mrs. T would be alive and well today.
All through the trial the City refused to offer any monetary settlement of this case until the jury had heard all of the evidence was actively deliberating. The City had even tried to defend the case, in part, by claiming it attempted to buy more batteries during the time in question but was unable to do so. Before the jury returned with its verdict the City came to its senses and voluntarily offered to pay Mrs. T’s family a very substantial amount of money to settle the action. In an unusual request for the City, it requested that the amount of money remain confidential.
Medical Malpractice Settlement: A 27 year old woman who broke her ankle had a cast applied at a Brooklyn hospital and was sent home. After a few days, her lower leg began to swell and became painful. She returned to Downstate Medical Center emergency room for evaluation and was admitted for observation. Her lower leg continued to hurt and remained swollen. Although her symptoms were classic warning signs that she was developing a blood clot in her lower leg (a thrombosis) nothing was done to find out if that was the case. None of the doctors even thought of that and none of them ordered any tests to determine the cause of the pain and swelling or to treat her for the possibility of a blood clot.
Four days after being admitted for observation, she was found unconscious in her hospital room. Tests demonstrated that she had developed a blood clot that traveled to her lungs. (A pulmonary embolism.) She remained in a coma for two months before she died. She was survived by her mother and father.
After a two year battle with Downstate Hospital that included obtaining pretrial testimony from five of the doctors who rendered care to the woman, including the head of the orthopedics department, we were able to obtain a substantial settlement offer that was approved by the Court of Claims.
$650,000.00 settlement for trip and fall case in Manhattan. On the morning of the accident, our client was walking on East 15th Street. She stopped at a restaurant to read the menu posted in the front window. When finished, she turned to continue walking. She took three steps and fell into an open sidewalk basement vault door. The metal doors, which are present in sidewalks to allow street access to storefront basement spaces are seen all over the City of New York. Our client didn’t know how she landed inside the basement with a severely fractured leg requiring surgery and rehabilitation.
We started working on the case as soon as we were retained. Pretrial discovery and investigation was especially important in this case. We learned that the restaurant employee who opened the door of the basement vault had done so from inside the basement, contrary to safe practice. What had happened, and what we were prepared to prove at trial, is that the man opened the one door that was farthest from our client while she was walking toward the doors. As the door opened suddenly without warning, her next step was into the hole created by the worker and she fell through the one open door.
The restaurant attorneys had tried to have the case thrown out of Court before trial claiming the accident was all our client’s fault, a common defense tactic we consider frivolous. We defeated that attempt and shortly before the trial was scheduled to start, they threw in the towel offering a substantial sum to settle this case.
$475,000.00 settlement for a man walking in Central Park who was injured by a bicycle rider who ran into him. As anyone who visits the park can tell you, there are cyclists dressed in racing gear riding around the Central Park Drives as though they are on a private training course. On the morning of this accident, the bike rider was a nationally ranked triathlete completing a training ride with two of his riding buddies. He was mounted on a $7,000 bicycle. As he approached the cross walk on the East Park Drive north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he estimated his speed at 18 mph during this “cool down lap.”
From 75 feet away, he spotted our client crossing the drive in the cross walk. The bike was not equipped with a simple $10.00 bell which would have warned our client of the fast approaching hazard. The biker testified he could have stopped in time to avoid the collision but didn’t even slow down. Instead he continued on instead of swerve away from the man in front of him, because that risked a crash with his riding buddies, he continued on the collision course leading to a heavy direct hit into our client. The force of the blow propelled our client about 20 feet. When he landed he fractured his pelvis, his hip and shoulder. He required two surgeries, months of rehabilitation and will require one additional surgery.
New York City traffic regulations classify bikes as vehicles required to adhere to the same rules of the road as cars. In addition, bikes must be equipped with a bell. The reason is bells are required is simple: they work. Studies have shown that a bicycle bell is a recognizable sound that alerts pedestrians and other cyclists to an oncoming bicycle. Had the rider in this case slowed or stopped from 75 feet away when he first saw our client, the accident would have been avoided. If he had continued but used a bell to warn our client as he stepped into the crosswalk, that too would have served to avoid the accident.
We have obtained substantial settlements after bringing lawsuits against the City of New York as the result of civil rights violations by the New York City Police Department, the NYPD, during the past 15 years. During that time we have recovered millions of dollars for our civil rights clients. Examples of police abuse and police brutality for which we have helped our clients include assaults by police officers, false arrest, and false imprisonment.
Other categories of injuries for which we have assisted in recovering millions of dollars for our clients include Erbs Palsy, cerebral palsy, brain damage and brain injury.
Bronx Injury Law Firm, Reibman & Weiner have more than 50 years combined experience in pursuing justice for injured people. Our efforts have recovered millions of dollars for our personal injury and civil rights clients.
