Malpractice Defendants Sue Their Lawyers
Posted by
Brent AdamsApril 05, 2007 4:41 PMIn a case which reports a good example of abuse of our civil justice system by insurance companies, medical doctors who suffered a $217,000,000.00 verdict against them in a malpractice case have sued their own lawyers.
Among the claims against their former lawyers was the fact their lawyers turned down settlement offers of $1,000,000.00 for one doctor and $3,000,000.00 for the other doctor. The doctors claim that the proposed settlements were never adequately explained to them. The doctors say that their attorneys failed to properly advise them, fraudulently concealed information, and failed to respond to settlement demands.
The doctors' new lawyers who are suing their former malpractice defense lawyers state that the case should have never gone to trial, that it should have been settled, and claim that the doctors were "hung out to dry."
The malpractice case against the doctors seems clear. Their patient went to a hospital emergency room complaining of nausea, headache, dizziness, and double vision. The patient was essentially sent home five hours later with a painkiller prescription and a diagnosis of sinusitis.
Although the defendant doctors could not diagnose the condition, the patient in reality was having a stroke. He returned to the hospital with more severe symptoms the next morning, underwent surgery hours later to relieve brain swelling, and ended up in a coma for three months. When he awoke from the coma, he was permanently disabled. The patient, who was 50-years-old at the time was awarded $117,000,000.00 for economic damages, pain, and suffering. The doctors were then ordered to pay $100.1 million dollars in punitive damages. This was the largest jury verdict in Florida ever.
In the doctors' suit against their former malpractice lawyers, they claim that the lawyers who were hired by their malpractice insurance company were protecting the interest of the insurance company and not theirs. One of the doctors said he was pressured by the lawyers to say that he always gave a patient a physical exam and a patient history even if such an examination was previously performed by a physician's assistant. This doctor said he did not perform physicals on patients who had already been seen by a physician's assistant and that he did not remember personally examining the patient who sued him for malpractice. In spite of being informed by the doctors of the truth, the insurance company's lawyers continued denying that anyone except the doctor was involved in the patient's care and treatment.
The patient's attorney made several attempts to settle the case against the doctors but all of these attempts were rejected by the insurance company's lawyers.
Although the conduct of the insurance company's malpractice defense lawyers was reprehensible, they were merely puppets in the hands of the malpractice insurance company which called all the shots. The real culprit in this case was the malpractice insurance company who, as most of them do, followed the industry standard of delay, deny, and defend.