ACK Injury Law

$12

Medical Malpractice

We represented a couple who were looking forward to having their first child. When our client was in her 18th week of pregnancy, she went to her doctor’s office for a routine prenatal visit. It is the standard of care that at this stage of a woman’s pregnancy, her health care provider should offer her an Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) test. The AFP test may detect birth defects. Most women elect to have the test because it enables them to consider ending the pregnancy if their child has severe birth defects, or to better prepare for childbirth. Some women elect not to have the test. The health care provider should get the patient’s informed consent to have or not have the test. Informed consent is a duty imposed by law on health care providers, requiring them to inform a patient of the risks and benefits of a medical test or procedure, so that the patient can make an informed decision about whether or not to have it. During the critical office visit, our client was seen by a midwife, who did not inform our client about the AFP test nor offer it to her. The day after the office visit, a nurse from the doctor’s office called our client and offered her the AFP test. However, the nurse did not properly inform our client about the risks and benefits. Our client declined it. Our client gave birth to a baby with birth defects. We brought suit against the doctor’s office, claiming that the midwife had failed to properly inform our client about the risks and benefits of the AFP test and that our client’s decision not to have it was therefore not an informed one.

$10

Personal Injury

We represented a young man who was asked to volunteer to ride a Segway Personal Transporter at a charity event and was not provided with a helmet. He fell off the Segway Personal Transporter and hit his head, resulting in the permanent loss of his sense of smell and a traumatic brain injury. The “Segway Challenge” was an obstacle course with four legs. Each of four team members was asked to ride a Segway Personal Transporter through one leg of the obstacle course. Different handicaps were incorporated into each leg of the course. For instance, in one leg the rider would wear “drunk goggles,” which simulate the disorientation caused by being drunk. During the leg that our client rode, the rules called for him to be blindfolded. In its owner’s manual and instructional video, Segway recommends that anyone riding a Segway Personal Transporter always wear a helmet. On the day in question, two Segway representatives who helped plan the event, and who brought the Personal Transporters to the event, forgot to bring helmets. When the Segway representatives instructed the volunteers on how to ride the Personal Transporters, the representatives did not tell the volunteers that Segway recommended they wear helmets. The Segway representatives then allowed the volunteers to ride through the obstacle course without helmets. Our client was almost finished with his leg of the course when he fell backwards off the Segway Personal Transporter and smashed the unprotected back of his head on the floor. Our client suffered a subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding inside the skull), which resulted in encephalomalacia - softening of the brain. These injuries caused mild traumatic brain damage: trouble maintaining attention, problems with tasks requiring mental flexibility, and difficulty processing complex information at a normal rate. The fall also caused our client to lose his sense of smell, which he will never regain, and left him with a reduced sense of taste.

$6

Medical Malpractice

We represented the estate of a man whose doctor failed to diagnose his throat cancer. Our client had gotten a Positron Emission Tomography [PET] scan, which showed an area of increased uptake, a sign of cancer. His doctor performed a fiberoptic examination of the inside of our client’s throat, but this type of fiberoptic examination does not always reveal a small growth. The standard of care, in order to rule out cancer, is to do a follow-up PET scan and fiberoptic examination within three months. The doctor failed to recommend such follow-up. A year later our client’s cancer became symptomatic. The cancer was diagnosed and aggressively treated, but it was too late. He died two years later, at age 71.

$2.9M

Product Liability

On July 18, 2017, after three days of deliberations, a federal court jury in New Haven, Connecticut brought in a verdict of $2,875,000 in a wrongful death product liability case against General Motors. The lawsuit claimed that General Motors failed to adequately warn its customers of a hidden danger in its 2004 Suburban. More specifically, the lawsuit claimed that customers should have been warned that the 2004 Suburban could be shifted out of park without the driver’s foot on the brake when the key was in the accessory position, allowing the vehicle to roll away without the engine running. An eight-year-old girl was killed when the Suburban unexpectedly rolled down a hill in 2011.

$2.3M

Motorcycle Accident

Our clients, a husband and wife, suffered severe, disabling crush injuries to their legs, necessitating extensive surgeries when the motorcycle they were driving was struck by a car turning directly into their path. The motorcycle driver suffered severe comminuted fractures from his ankle up to his knee. The leg fractures to his tibia and fibula resulting in the use of an external fixator. The motorcycle passenger suffered fractures of her hips, crush injuries to her left thigh and calf, a torn knee ligament, a pelvic fracture, and a fractured jaw and teeth. Both clients underwent multiple surgeries with a long painful recovery and rehabilitation, and sustained permanent disabilities of their left lower extremities. We prepared a video settlement brochure that included an accident simulation as well as documentation of their extensive surgeries, medical treatment, and rehabilitation with interviews from their health care providers.

$2

Medical Malpractice

We represented the estate and widow of a 64-year-old artist who died following gallbladder surgery. Our client went to the hospital emergency room with severe abdominal pain. He was diagnosed with gallstone pancreatitis. Three days later, a surgeon performed a laparoscopic cholecystectomy to remove his gallbladder. As part of the surgery, the cystic duct, which connects the gallbladder to the common bile duct, had to be cut and clipped to prevent bile from leaking into his abdomen. Our client was discharged from the hospital the day after surgery. A week later, he went to his surgeon’s office for a postoperative visit. He complained of pain and his blood tests showed his liver function tests were above normal limits. His surgeon instructed him to return to the office the following week. When our client returned the following week, his liver function tests were still abnormal, and he was admitted to the hospital. A CT scan done in the hospital showed that a large collection of bile had leaked into his abdomen. Despite the presence of fever, the surgeon did not react promptly and drain the bile collection until five days after admission. By that time, it was too late; our client died from an infection that had grown in the bile. On autopsy, it was found that the clip which the surgeon had placed on the cystic duct to prevent bile from leaking into the abdomen had fallen off. Adelman Hirsch & Connors presented expert testimony that the treating surgeon was negligent in four ways: 1) failing to properly clip the cystic duct during the surgery; 2) discharging our client from the hospital the day after surgery; 3) failing to start a workup on the cause of the abnormal liver function tests the week after the surgery; and 4) failing to drain the bile collection and commence appropriate antibiotics sooner.