REPRESENTATIVE CASES
(Wrongful Death-Vehicular) Suit was filed in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis on behalf of our clients who were the father and teen age son of a woman who was killed in an intersectional collision on Memorial Drive at the foot of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Our clients' spouse and mother, respectively, was enroute to pick up her son from a social event in downtown St. Louis and was proceeding through the intersection of Memorial Drive and Market Street on a green light when her vehicle was struck broad side by an SUV being driven by a professional athlete affiliated with one of St. Louis' sports teams. This high profile athlete, who was intoxicated, had just left the bar/lounge of a downtown hotel. Two blocks from the hotel he was operating his SUV vehicle at a high rate of speed when he drove through a red light, violently colliding with the victim's automobile. The victim was pronounced dead a short time after the accident. Suit was brought against this professional athlete, the sports team franchise that employed him, and the hotel where he was served the intoxicating beverages. [Confidential Settlement]
(Personal Injury-Medical Malpractice) Client, a recent graduate of chiropractic school set to embark on his career as a chiropractic physician underwent arthroscopic surgery of his right elbow at local hospital. The surgery was performed by a physician in the orthopedic residency program at the hospital, under supervision and with the assistance of a more experienced staff physician. During the course of the surgery the radial nerve in the client's right arm was partially severed, resulting in permanent injury in the arm. As a result, the client did not have sufficient strength and function in his arm to enable him to perform as a chiropractic physician and he had to abandon this career. Following trial in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, the jury returned a verdict for our client and his wife in the amount of $1.8 million dollars. A subsequent appeal by Defendants was unsuccessful and the total recovery for our clients with interest following the appeal was in excess of $2 million dollars. [Spain v. Brown, 811 S.W. 2d 47 (Mo. App. E.D. 1991)]
(Personal Injury/Wrongful Death-Medical Malpractice) Suit filed in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis against physicians and hospital for professional negligence surrounding the birth of a premature infant. The physician pediatrician pronounced the infant dead soon after a troublesome premature delivery. However, nurses observed the infant breathing and detected improving vital signs and immediately began life sustaining efforts. After notifying the physician of these developments the physician was still of the opinion that the infant was "legally dead" and the nurses were instructed to leave the infant unattended in an unheated isolette (newborn hospital crib). The infant eventually expired. This case played out like the script from a feature film. The key nurse witness who was vital to a successful outcome of our client's case went missing soon after the occurrence. Through dogged private investigation over the course of several years it was eventually determined shortly before the trial date that the nurse had changed her name and moved to another city to work, for fear of being "black balled" from the medical profession if she were called upon to truthfully testify to the events she had witnessed. The name she was using and the city where she was living were unknown. The trial was scheduled to commence following a holiday weekend. Approximately one week before the trial, on a hunch the missing nurse might visit her parents' home for the holiday, the private investigator was assigned to stake out the St. Louis County home of her parents. When she in fact appeared at the home of her parents for a visit, the investigator was able to serve her with a subpoena to testify at trial. This emotionally charged case brought into play interesting and complex medico/legal ethics issues and questions dealing with the definition of death, right to life, quality of life issues etc. [Confidential Settlement reached on the Friday preceding the Monday trial date.]
(Wrongful Death-Medical Malpractice) Client was the surviving spouse of a patient at Veteran's Administration Hospital in Columbia, Missouri. A staff physician at the hospital failed to diagnose breast cancer of our client's wife, which ultimately resulted in her death. Suit was filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act and trial of this case resulted in $800,000.00 award to our client.
(Personal Injury-Medical Malpractice) Suit brought against doctor and hospital in the Circuit Court of St. Charles County, Missouri for the physician obstetrician's failure to timely perform delivery by caesarian section. The fetus was left too long in the birth canal causing fetal hypoxia/asphyxia resulting in traumatic brain damage/cerebral palsy from lack of oxygen. The defendant physician had been a named defendant in two previous suit alleging birth defects as a result of her professional negligence. [Confidential Settlement]
(Personal Injury-Product Liability) Suit brought in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis, against manufacturer of a concrete pumping machine on behalf an illiterate laborer who had his fingers traumatically amputated while cleaning the machine. The manufacturer failed design or equip the machine with a simple "deadlock" switch mechanism that would have prevented the machine from cycling during the cleaning process. Guarding of the dangerous mechanism and lack of adequate pictorial warnings were also factors in the case. [Confidential Settlement]
(Personal Injury-Medical Malpractice) A wrongful death suit was filed in the Circuit Court for St. Louis County, Missouri on behalf of our clients, the three surviving children of a nurse/patient who underwent elective surgery at an out-patient surgery center for what was to be a routine "D&C" procedure. Anesthesia was administered by a nurse anesthetist while a physician/anesthesiologist was present at the surgery center. In spite of decreasing blood pressure readings from the time of the patient's arrival at the surgery center until her transfer to the operating room, the nurse anesthetist proceeded with administration of the anesthetic agent, thereby causing the patient's blood pressure to drop precipitously. Emergency procedures were immediately instituted and the patient was taken to a nearby hospital where she died less than three hours later. [Confidential Settlement]
(Personal Injury-Medical Malpractice) Suit filed in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, against our client's OB/GYN physician. Client visited her OB/GYN physician with complaints of vaginal pain and discomfort. The physician, without conducting any diagnostic testing concluded that the problem was fibroid tumors in the client's uterus. Approximately nine months later, client returned to her physician with the increased complaints of pelvic and vaginal pain. The physician made the same diagnosis as before but recommended a partial hysterectomy to relieve her painful symptoms. During the ensuing surgical procedure the defendant physician found that his patient did not have any fibroid tumors in her uterus as he had previously diagnosed but instead had tumor on her left ovary that was subsequently determined to be a malignant tumor consisting of clear cell adenocarcinoma. Although the physician removed her left ovary and left fallopian tube, he neglected to remove her right ovary, right fallopian tube and uterus (complete hysterectomy) to prevent this malignant cancer from metastasizing. Therefore, our client immediately required a second surgery but first had to complete chemotherapy treatment that had been started. This second surgery performed four or five months later was too close in time to the first surgery to qualify as the necessary "second look" surgery to determine if the cancerous condition had been successfully treated and arrested. As a result, she eventually had to undergo a total of three surgeries instead of only two. This suit included as elements of damage the lost chance of successful recovery and/or diminished chance of recovery and survival and the attendant emotional/mental anxiety and distress associated with the delay in diagnosis and the client's knowledge that the cancer was progressing from the time of her original complaints until the date of her first surgery. [Confidential Settlement]
(Personal Injury-Medical Malpractice) Suit filed in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis on behalf of a client who underwent surgical removal of a large suspicious lump that had suddenly appeared at the base of her neck. Following the surgery by her Ear, Nose and Throat Physician, she initially could not lift her head up from the hospital gurney nor could she extend her right arm. During post-surgical visits with the physician she continued to complain about numbness in her neck and difficulty with lifting her right arm. The physician repeatedly advised her that her symptoms were normal and recommended vitamin therapy to assist her with her post surgical recovery. The client consulted another physician and after nerve conduction testing was performed it was determined that during the surgery, the physician had partially severed her spinal accessory nerve. [Following trial the jury returned a verdict in favor of our client in the amount of $256,700.00]
(Personal Injury-Trucking) Suit filed in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis on behalf of our client, a 37 year old man who sustained traumatic brain injury (TBI) with resulting altered personality, permanent cognitive deficits and other physical injuries. Our client was traveling to work southbound on Highway 100 in Franklin County, Missouri during the pre-dawn hour of darkness. An 18 wheel tractor-trailer truck hauling steel trusses on a flatbed trailer was turning left from the driveway of a rural trucking company facility to proceed north on Highway 100. Due to the length of the tractor-trailer the truck driver was unable to complete his turn in one continuous movement. Instead, it was going to be necessary for him to drive the rig as far as he could onto the opposite shoulder of the highway and then stop the rig, back it up, straighten it out, and pull forward to complete the turn. With the rig pulled out across the highway, stopped and completely blocking both lanes of the highway in this "jack-knifed" position, our client rounded a curve in the highway and did not see the poorly illuminated trailer blocking the entire highway until it was too late to stop. His vehicle "submarined" under the flatbed trailer, shearing off the top of his car. [Settlement: $950,000.00]
(Personal Injury-Product Liability) Our clients were two brothers both in their twenties who were severely burned when their small rental boat exploded at a fuel dock at the Lake of the Ozarks. The explosion occurred as a result of a defective fuel cap/fuel tank filler assembly. Because of the defective design and/or manufacture of this product, the fuel fill tube leading from the back of the filler cap to the gas tank had sheared off inside the engine compartment. As a result, during fueling of the boat the gas coming from the gas pump nozzle was being discharged directly into the engine compartment. The gas vapors subsequently ignited, causing an large explosion that engulfed the boat in flames. Suit was filed in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis against the boat manufacturer, the component manufacturer, and the boat rental company for failing to maintain and inspect the boat. [Settlement: $660,000.00]
