Articles Posted in States

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In Oakland County, Michigan, a jury awarded a $130 million settlement on behalf of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. The jury found two medical technicians liable for causing the child’s severe and permanent brain damage that resulted in cerebral palsy. The $130 million incident was one of the largest jury settlements in Michigan history.

The Facts of the Case

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the boy and his mother in 2016. The child was 2 months old when the injury occurred in 2006. According to the plaintiff’s attorney, the child requires help getting in and out of the bathtub. The boy’s mother is a full-time caregiver for her son.  These are tough cases.  You can hear about 1,000 of them but every time it is like you are hearing the facts for the first time.  It is heartbreaking.

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This post is about a large verdict in Georgia after an awful circumcision mishap caused a boy serious and permanent injuries.  In this post, I talk about this tragic case and I also take a deep dive into the statute of limitations in Georgia in birth injury cases.

The Big Verdict

A jury in Clayton County, Georgia awarded a mother and her four-year-old son $31 million for a circumcision gone wrong. This incidence of malpractice took place at an OB/GYN and pediatric clinic.This is a big verdict for the most common surgical procedure in the country and one that is rarely the subject of a malpractice lawsuit.

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 car collisionThe average verdict in a personal injury case in Minnesota is $271,577. The national average is $885,600.

Does this mean Minnesota juries are not sympathetic to personal injury victims? I think it might, actually. In fact, I think the statistics might actually underestimate how stingy Minnesota juries can be.

Why? The biggest driving force in personal injury verdicts is car accidents because is the most common type of personal injury case. So the state’s law in dealing with car accident claims is going to make a more meaningful impact on personal injury statistics.

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The purpose of this post is to discuss a cerebral palsy verdict for an injury that occurred in 1984 and to explain the statute of limitations in birth injury cases in Washington in 2018.

malletjustice-300x200A Saratoga County, Washington jury awarded $43.5 million to a woman who sued the former Bellevue Maternity Hospital in Niskayuna for severe brain damage she suffered during her birth in 1984.

While the Plaintiff is blessed with above-average intelligence with a degree from Arizona State University, she uses a wheelchair and lacks motor skills due to the brain damage from cerebral palsy.

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New York City
Jury Verdict Research’s recent study finds that the compensatory median award for personal injury trials in New York is $287,628, dwarfing nationwide median is $34,550.

New York has favorable juries, particularly in its urban areas. But the reality is that this number is distorted by the lack of smaller and midsized car accident lawsuits. Under New York’s no-fault law, an insurance company is required to pay drivers, passengers, and pedestrians up to $50,000.00 for their legitimate economic and medical losses but does not provide for pain and suffering. Only permanent injuries cases can recover more than $50,000. This leads to fewer lawsuits in smaller cases – of which there are many – which increases the overall award in New York.

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Jury Verdict Research found that the average money damage award for personal injury trials in California is $1,814,094. The median verdict, perhaps a better statistic, is $114,305. Other interesting facts from the study:

  • The median verdict in a wrongful death case is $2,212,936, compared to the national average of $1,450,000
  • Approximately 17% of the verdicts in California were back and neck strains. They pull the median and average verdicts down. The median back and neck strain verdict was $10,885
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Below is a list of GEICO settlements and verdicts in Oregon in 2016.

  • Oregon: $120,000 Verdict. An adult female is driving in the left lane of a three-lane, one-way road when she is struck by a vehicle attempting to make a left turn from the center lane. She was insured by GEICO, and filed a claim to recover underinsured motorist benefits. GEICO argues the extent of her injuries, but a jury awards her $1,991.69 for economic damages and $73,008.31 for non-economic damages.
  • Oregon: $99,978 Verdict. Plaintiff is traveling on an off-ramp in front of defendant’s vehicle. Plaintiff stops her vehicle at a stop sign. She inches out to look at traffic, and defendant’s vehicle strikes the rear of her vehicle. The plaintiff suffers a left shoulder injury requiring surgery as a result, as well as thoracic and lumbar sprains. The defendant is insured by GEICO, and ordered to pay $74,978 in medical expenses, $20,000 in lost wages, and $5,000 in non-economic damages to the plaintiff.
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Disc injury claims

Value of Injury Cases: Disc Injuries

I think it is useful to write about jury verdicts and give thoughts as to why I think the jury found as they did and the issues that arose in the case.  Why?  Because people are looking online for information about the value of their cases.  On our website, we provide a ton of verdict information for victims, many of which suffered a herniated disc.  This helps give some lens to the value of a case.  But it hardly tells the real story of the claim and why a jury may have valued it the way that they did.  So hopefully posts like this help educate those looking for answers.

Facts of Mayrink v. Luchsinger

This is a herniated disc case.   Plaintiff, a painter by trade, crashed into a median strip after being pushed off the road by the defendant who must have changed lanes without looking.   Usually, in these lane change cases, you almost invariably have a liability fight on your hands.  Defense counsel in this case, probably wisely, admitted responsibility.  Why is this wise?  Defense counsel often admits liability because they know if they fight and lose there is real credibility lost on the scope of the injuries battle.   By admitting fault, defendant seems more credible and honest than if they fight on liability and lose.  Continue reading

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A South Dakota judge ruled this week that health care providers are subject to negligent credentialing lawsuits when they fail to properly malletjusticecredential doctors.

Judge Bruce Anderson made another important ruling: that even people on the credentialing committee may be subject to suit.   This has not real practical implications because a hospitals is going to stand behind the committee.  But it is never fun to be sued personally even if you have no real exposure.

The judge also found that hospitals cannot claim peer review privileges, as an absolute defense against discovery requests.  This is very pro patient safety and could be a ruling that could start to erode the absolute defense from discovery; that has long been the case in Maryland and in most states. The judge’s logic: hospitals may have an obligation, in some cases, to the public that outweighs peer review confidentiality.  Makes a lot of sense to me.

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Jury Verdict Research conducted a study and found that the median award in a personal injury case is approximately $100,000.  This is twice the national average.  The bad news for New Jersey PlaintiffsNew Jersey sign is that they only win in 36 percent of personal injury cases that go to trial.

New Jersey has a good sample size to work with to compute this data.  Over 130,000 civil lawsuits are filed every year.  I don’t have data on how many of them are personal injury cases.  But I can estimate: a lot.

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