A Hawaii appellate court affirmed a malpractice verdict in favor of a man who suffered an infection on his scrotum that lead to castration.
The outcome is awful. What makes the verdict surprising is that the plaintiff was a prisoner at the time of the malpractice, serving time for a drug offense.
Besides the prisoner hurdle, the plaintiff also had to get around the doctor’s immunity argument that as a government employee, he should be immune from liability.
A settlement has been reached in the deaths of a young California attorney and her cousin, after the two women fell to their death while hiking in Hawaii.
The details are tragic. A 32-year-old attorney and her 25-year-old cousin were hiking in a state park, in December 2006. The two encountered a sign warning them not to proceed further along their trail, as it forked to the left. As such, they took the path to the right, which looked to be part of the trail but was not, and instead lead to a cliff, covered in vegetation, with a 300-foot drop. Last year, a Hawaiian judge found the state was liable for the deaths of the two women, because the sign created a hazard that essentially led them to their fatal fall.
The $15.4 million settlement is believed to be the highest personal injury settlement in state history. Here’s the kicker, though. Of that figure, $425,000 is awarded to the family of the cousin, with the remaining $15 million being awarded to the attorney’s family. Wow, big difference. I get the whole “future earning potential” and all. And she did work for one of the nation’s biggest firms. Still. That’s a hard gap to swallow.
Lawsuit Information Center