Case Summaries:     $10.4 Million Verdict     Partners James Lowe and Dennis Mulvihill won a $10.4 million verdict in Palm Beach County, Florida, against Ford Motor Company, for their client who was paralyzed by a defective seat in a Ford Explorer. On October 30, 2001, Donna Grimes, age 60, was properly seatbelted and operating her 2000 Ford Explorer. While stopped and waiting to turn left into her tennis club, her vehicle was struck from behind by a Toyota Solara, traveling at approximately 60 miles per hour. The teeth on the recliner mechanism gears stripped and sheared off, and Donna Grimes' seat collapsed onto the rear seat, allowing her to be thrown out of her seatbelt into the rear seatback where she suffered a severely fractured cervical spine, leaving her a quadriplegic. The jury found that Ford Motor Company had placed the Explorer on the market with a defect in the seat design which was a legal cause of the Plaintiff's severe injuries. The unanimous verdict awarded $1 million to Richard Grimes, Donna's husband, for his losses and $9.4 million to Donna Grimes. The jury of five men and one woman deliberated for a total of approximately 11 hours over three days before returning their verdict for the Plaintiffs.     $2.5 Million Verdict     In what is believed to be the largest malpractice verdict ever in Butler County, Ohio, partner Dennis Mulvihill won a trial against a local surgeon who, during a Greenfield Filter procedure, pierced the atrium and the pericardial sac (the tough sac that surrounds the heart) causing the patient to bleed to death on the operating table. The patient was a retried Bowling Green and Miami University psychology professor, who was unmarried, but was survived by his three adult children. After a six day trial, the Butler County jury found the doctor liable for malpractice and awarded the family $2,500,000.00. The client had developed deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) in the left leg, and then multiple pulmonary emboli (blood clots in the lungs that traveled from the left leg) making breathing difficult. After blood thinners were ruled out as a treatment option, the filter was properly chosen as the treatment of choice. The filter is a stainless steel device that looks like an umbrella, without the fabric, which is placed into the inferior vena cava. Since all of the blood from the lower extremities travels to the heart and lungs through the inferior vena cava, any clot that might break free (called an embolus) must pass through the inferior vena cava. The filter catches the clots, but does not interrupt blood flow, and allows the body time to naturally dissolve the clots. During the procedure, the doctor pierced the atrium and pericardium with either the dilator or the guide wire; there was considerable disagreement during the trial which instrument caused the damage. It was Mulvihill's position that piercing the atrium and the pericardial sac was impossible if the doctor had been paying attention, and thus, was malpractice. The defense countered that the puncturing of the heart was a known complication, but the evidence developed during the case demonstrated that there had never been a reported incident like the complication created by the defendant doctor-piercing the atrium and the pericardium. Mulvihill used a sophisticated animation to demonstrate to the jury how the doctor went off course during the procedure and inflicted the fatal wounds to the heart and pericardium.     $4.3 Million Verdict     Truck driver suffered severe permanent injuries, including blindness, when a defectively designed hatch lid on a tanker trailer failed to hold when under pressure, causing him to be drenched in hydrochloric acid.     $2 Million Settlement     Birth injury - failure to diagnose fetal distress. Physican failed to recognize and respond to indications of fetal distress as shown by the fetal monitor strips, resulting in brain injury to infant.     $2 Million Trial Verdict — reduced by loss of chance percentage     Failure to diagnose lung cancer. Family physician interpreted x-ray finding as Tuberculosis, resulting in two-year delay in diagnosis of lung cancer.     $1.6 Million Verdict     Teenage girl suffered paralyzing injuries as the result of a defective seatbelt design which permitted her to be ejected when the vehicle in which she was riding rolled over.     $1.5 Million Trial Verdict     Defective design of door handle on commercial truck. Manufacturer of refuse truck designed passenger door with unprotected, latch-type handle, allowing for inadvertent opening while truck being driven on roadway. Passenger killed when he inadvertently opened door, and was pulled under the tires of the moving vehicle when he reached to close the door.     $1.4 Million Verdict — over $2 Million with interest     Negligent hospital maintenance permitted fire which resulted in severe property damage and business interruption.     $1.2 Million Trial Verdict     Surgeon's failure to treat complication arising from gallbladder surgery. Patient died several weeks following removal of his gallbladder when surgeon failed to recognize leaking cystic duct.     $900,000 Settlement     Failure to diagnose heart attack. Emergency room physician failed to recognize signs of impending heart attack, discharging patient who died at home.     $600,000 Settlement     Hospital overdose of morphine. Excessive amount of Morphine administered to patient following surgery causing respiratory depression when transferred to regular nursing floor. Nurses failed to monitor patient resulting in brain injury.     Confidential Settlement     Seatback failure in low speed, rear impact. Belted male driver thrown rearward, resulting in quadriplegia and blindness.     Confidential Settlement     Seatback failure in low speed, rear impact, resulting in paraplegia.     Confidential Settlement     Wrongful death of mother and child in the rollover of a sport utility vehicle.     Confidential Settlement     Wrongful death of an adult driver when his airbag deployed suddenly and without an impact, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle which left the roadway and struck a grove of trees.     Confidential Settlement     Wrongful death of a child killed by an airbag which deployed with excessive force in a low-speed collision.     Confidential Settlement     Wrongful death of husband and wife who were killed in a rollover accident when the seatbelt stitching tore loose, resulting in an additional 15 to 20 inches of seatbelt webbing, allowing husband to be ejected from the vehicle while still wearing his seatbelt.     Confidential Settlement     Young woman rendered quadriplegic when her passenger automobile rolled over and she was ejected because her seatbelt was attached to her door, which came open during the course of the rollover, taking the seatbelt with it and leaving her unrestrained.
© 2008 Lowe Eklund Wakefield & Mulvihill Co., LPA