By: James C. Lewis, HSCLA AttorneyIt may come as a surprise but 2 million patients residing in hospitals get hospital-acquired infections every year. Infection stalls recovery, sometimes requiring weeks of intravenous antibiotics or a grueling round of surgeries to remove the infected tissue. Approximately 90,000 Americans who acquire these infections actually die as a result.Nationwide,...
An amazing story of a railroad's careless conduct and the intense and lifelong consequences of such carelessness arose out of a recent 37.5 Million Dollar settlement that Kansas City Southern Railway Company (KCS) paid in October, 2006. I personally spoke with Tom Jones, one of the several trial lawyers with Davis, Bethune and Jones, who represented the entire family that was tragically injured...
In one of the cases, MacArthur v. UVA Health Services Foundation, the Virginia circuit court judge dismissed in a footnote the contention of the plaintiff's attorney that the salaries of the physicians who work for the foundation are so high that this negates any claim that it is a true charity because the doctors were paid as much as $897,000.00 in salary and benefits in calendar year 2004,...
There has been an interesting decision of the California Court of Appeals relating to whether a doctor is liable for a nurse's mistake where the nurse leaves a sponge inside the body of a patient, unbeknownst to the doctor. Lawyers with our firm have had several prior cases involving infection and other complications that result from a sponge left inside a body that becomes infected, causing...