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Subject: Any Lawyers, or people with good law minds.
Posted by: wiggs
- Sustainer [04991311] Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 12:13
My Family and friends think we need to file a lawsuit for the hard times my wife and I have been having due to her surgery. I wanted to see if we had a case or not.
The situation:
on Feb 15th my wife had gastric bypass surgery as a way to help her lose weight, but also to help her cut down her high cholesterol. She had the surgery at 745 am, lasted til about 11 ish (not 100 percent sure here) I do know I was about to see her at 1215 and they said recovery is anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. Everything seemed fine and she was doing well. I spent that whole day with her and she was good, just tired, so I went back to the hotel to get some sleep. I got a phone call at 4 AM telling me she has been up all night vomiting blood. I immediately went back to the hospital and spent the entire day there. She continued to vomit blood for that whole day. Every time she did I would say to the nurse, doctor or anyone else who would listen that something was wrong, but no one listened. She then started getting intense stomach pains. I told the staff about this as well and the kept saying it is just gas, and it will go away. She finally fell asleep around midnight. I decided to sleep there that night. About 130 am she woke up with the pain continuing only worse. Still the staff would do nothing. The Dr. came in around 6 am and she told him what was wrong and he said he would be back. Finally around 830 he came back and said he would check something. Turns out the DR forgot to stitch one of the wounds and it was causing he stomach to go through the stomach wall and caused a hernia . She then needed another surgery. This one was more successful, but it caused her to be in the hospital 3 more days then necessary. She has since had minor complications, but they are telling us that is natural for this type of surgery. Do we bother trying to get something for malpractice or pain and suffering? or do we let it go?
Any help would be appriciated.
Thanks
wiggs |
| 1 | Perm Dude
ID: 19229227
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 12:20
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Wow. Sorry to hear about your troubles.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the hospital would typically have some in-house person who would be their "first defense" for these kinds of obvious mistakes. Don't sign anything, but make it known you know they made a mistake and you want to know what they will do about it (don't make specific demands except to ask what they will do about it).
Mark L, if he's still around, might be a good person to give you some advice.
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| 2 | sarge33rd
ID: 99331714
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 12:33
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Turns out the DR forgot to stitch one of the wounds and it...
By no means am I competent to address your specifics, but this would certainly seem to me anyway, to be more than an "reasonable" tolerance would allow for.
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| 3 | Seattle Zen
ID: 46315247
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 14:36
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It's not my field, but it sure sounds like you have a suit. Ask around for the highest recommended medical malpractice attorney in your area. Hell, call the biggest firm in the nearest city and ask them if they handle med. mal. or if they can recommend somebody.
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| 4 | Myboyjack
ID: 8216923
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 19:55
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Don't answer a TV or billboard advertisement. Zen's right, go to the biggest lawfirm in town that will see you and see who they'll send you to.
Where do you live, Wiggs.
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| 5 | Punk42AE
Donor
ID: 036635522
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 20:06
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I would assume you should be able to for that mistake. But then was any PW signed before hand about the type of operation stating all of the different things that could happen? I still assume that wouldn't be covered by it though.
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| 6 | Ref
Donor
ID: 539581218
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 20:44
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Not my field, but my guess is that you get a big time lawyer and they will settle and pay your attorney fees. You'll likely only have to pay a little retainer up front. If you give them a dollar then that is sometimes enough.
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| 7 | Baldwin
ID: 3503618
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 22:00
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I would be astonished if you can't at the very least settle to have the doctor and the hospital eat the expenses of the second surgery and extended stay.
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| 8 | Mark L
Leader
ID: 03601149
Thu, Mar 22, 2007, 23:33
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Sorry to hear that things got so horribly messed up, wiggs.
Hope your wife's doing well.
I have only been involved in medical malpractice cases after
trials - I've been brought in to do appellate briefs in a couple of
cases - so this is not in my wheelhouse. The classic "no
defense" med mal case, though, is one in which an instrument
gets left inside the patient after surgery, and this doesn't look to
me to be too far away from that on the spectrum of better to
worse cases.
The way medical malpractice cases end up getting resolved
really depends on the state that you are in. I work in Wisconsin,
where it is a real uphill battle for plaintiffs, especially if the case
goes to trial. IIRC the win rate for plaintiffs at trial has been
between 10 and 15% historically. One reason for this is that the
defense bar (there are just a few law firms that handle 90% of
the med mal cases in SE Wisc) knows who the really good
plaintiffs' med mal lawyers are, knows that those lawyers don't
take lousy cases, and knows when they have a loser on their
hands. Those cases settle. In Wisconsin, you also have to go
through a mandatory mediation process before going ahead
with a lawsuit in court; I don't have any experience in that, but
it's another hurdle that plaintiffs have to clear. A lot of states
have passed limits on the pain and suffering damages you can
get in med mal cases, so even when you win the damages can be
much more limited than you'd see in an ordinary injury case.
There is no substitute for personal references in this area; lots
of lawyers advertise for these kinds of cases and very, very few
are good at them. MBJ is 100% right when he says don't hire
someone based only on advertising. You will get nowhere
without a good lawyer, and, sad to say, if you can't get a first-
rate lawyer to take this case, it's a strong sign that the case has
some problems. (One possible "problem" here is that the
damages may not be very high -- especially in a state that limits
pain and suffering damages, the guts of the damages are lost
past and future wages or value of domestic services and the
expenses of future medical or nursing care, etc. caused by the
malpractice. If your wife is going to recover fully, which is of
course a good thing, that may mean the damages are not what
they would be if the injuries were worse.) SZ's idea of calling a
big firm also might be fruitful. A large firm is almost certainly
not going to have a practice in this area, but the experienced
trial lawyers in a big firm litigation department will know who
the leaders of the plaintiffs' med mal bar are. Problem is that it's
hard to know on a cold call whether you're getting an opinion
from a big firm litigator who knows what he or she's talking
about.
If you look on your own for a lawyer, try to find one who's been
elected to one of the national associations for trial lawyers that
impose high standards for membership -- American College of
Trial Lawyers is one. It's also useful to see whether someone
you're considering has held high positions in your state's
plaintiff lawyers association -- for example, most of the top
plaintiff med mal lawyers in Wisconsin have been at one time or
another officers in the Wisconsin Academy of Trial Lawyers. Not
all of the good ones get involved in this stuff, though.
If you want to email me with your city, I will see if I have any
contacts in that area who I'd trust to steer you in the right
direction.
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| 9 | Dec
ID: 5821718
Fri, Mar 23, 2007, 11:22
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Re-7
I would be astonished if they received a bill for the expenses of the second surgery and extended stay.
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| 10 | gumby
ID: 48240219
Fri, Mar 23, 2007, 11:37
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Mark L told me about this. He and I are buds and have practiced together off and on for a decade or more. This is in my wheelhouse, and location certainly plays a role. Also, regardless of the locale, doctors fight like Mo-Fos on these things (even when it is seemingly clear as day that an error was made)----lots of extraneous reasons for that. Happy to converse via email.
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| 11 | wiggs@work
ID: 924215
Fri, Mar 23, 2007, 15:56
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the 2nd surgery was not charged to us, but my expenses for being there (hotel, food, and gas back and forth, just to name a few) were not covered. Also the fact that i missed 2 days of work and so did she hurt us.
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| 12 | Mattinglyinthehall
Leader
ID: 01629107
Fri, Mar 23, 2007, 17:06
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Wiggs I knew you were going through some family medical problems but wasn't aware of the extent. Sure hope everything's ok for your wife now and that you guys receive some compensation for all you dealt with.
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| 13 | Seattle Zen
ID: 49112418
Wed, Jul 11, 2007, 17:27
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Any updates?
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| 14 | wiggs
ID: 2542623
Wed, Jul 11, 2007, 17:38
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i think mark l forgot about me. I ended up going to a lawyer around town and they told me they didnt think i would make enough money off this case to make it worth their while to take the case on. So long story short nothing has happened.
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