Top Plaintiffs' Verdicts by Dollar - Blunt v. Central Coast Obstetrics and Gyncology

For partner Nicholas C. Rowley of the Law Offices of Carpenter Zuckerman & Rowley LLP, the key to winning a medical malpractice case last year was spending time with the plaintiffs' family in their home.

"It was a case with a little girl who has cerebral palsy and permanent brain damage because the doctor was basically asleep at the wheel and was practicing really sloppy medicine," said lead trial counsel Rowley, with second chairs Robert J. Ounjian and Rod Ritner.

A couple, Andrew and Jennifer Blunt, filed suit against Dr. Kurt Haupt for medical malpractice in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, claiming that the doctor's handling of the labor and delivery process during Jennifer's pregnancy fell below standard of care. That, they claimed, resulted in the daughter acquiring cerebral palsy. Blunt v. Central Coast Obstetrics and Gyncology, CV120299 (San Luis Obispo Super. Ct., filed May 17, 2012)

The jury awarded the plaintiffs $74.22 million - a verdict Rowley said will change the way medicine is practiced. "Different procedures have been put into place at the hospital there," he added.

The case against the doctor is completely closed, he said, but the case against the medical group and the health care system is still pending.

"Without medical malpractice cases and lawyers willing to take them all the way," Rowley said, "you don't have accountability. You have people washing things under the rug. Jury verdicts change policy [and] change the way that people do business, the way that providers practice medicine."

He said the team got to know the Blunt family by spending time with them in their home, adding that the familiarity with the case helped them communicate the family's plight to the jury.

"The key to winning the case was really connecting and caring about the family and being able to try the case from the heart and get the jurors to care too," he said.

- AMEERA BUTT

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