Sample Cases

The infant-plaintiff was a 12-year old asthmatic, who had been diagnosed with pediatric asthma by one partner in a two-partner pediatric practice. No one charted in his medical chart at the pediatrician's office that he was asthmatic. Over a period of approximately 18 months, the infant-plaintiff received numerous renewals of asthma medications (inhaled steroids) without visits to the physician's office and without the medications being charted in the infant-plaintiff's chart. During an evening the infant-plaintiff experienced an asthma attack at home and his parents administered several nebulizer treatments.

The following day, the mother took the infant-plaintiff to the pediatrician's office and additional nebulizer treatments were administered. On that day, the infant-plaintiff was treated as a non-asthmatic patient who was suspected of having bronchitis. The infant-plaintiff was discharged from the pediatrician's office to home. In the car, on the way home, the infant-plaintiff suffered another asthma attack. The mother rushed the infant-plaintiff to the nearest health care provider, but, the infant-plaintiff was comatose and severely brain damaged by the time the mother was able to obtain medical care. The infant-plaintiff currently resides in a pediatric nursing home where he is not responsive to light or sound, is maintained on a ventilator, is tube fed and exists in a semi-vegetative state. The infant-plaintiff's condition is permanent and his life expectancy is 20 or more years

The two partners of the pediatric practice had dissolved the partnership prior to trial. One of the partners admitted at deposition that the infant-plaintiff should not have been discharged from the practice following the nebulizer treatments on the date of the incident. The other partner, who wrote the prescriptions for the continually renewed asthma medication, first denied that he had issued such prescriptions and, when confronted with copies of signed prescriptions, admitted that the prescriptions probably should not have been renewed. The case settled approximately one week prior to trial. The infant-plaintiff received $4.5 million, which was placed in a Supplemental Needs Trust to fund his health care. His parents received $500,000 for the loss of the society, love and companionship of their son.