James Donahue v. Los Alamitos Medical Center, Tomi Evans, et al.
Published: Feb. 4, 2003 | Result Date: Dec. 13, 2002 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: SC063370 Verdict – $0
Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Central
Attorneys
Plaintiff
William N. McMillan
(DeWitt Algorri & Algorri)
Defendant
David J. O'Keefe
(Bonne Bridges Mueller O'Keefe & Nichols)
Stephen C. Fraser
(Fraser, Watson & Croutch LLP)
Experts
Plaintiff
James A. Recabaren
(medical)
Defendant
L. Kenneth Countryman
(medical)
Facts
James Donahue, a 50-year-old engineer had been in good health until January 1999 when he developed abdominal pain and jaundice. He was hospitalized at Los Alamitos Hospital in March 1999 where he underwent gallbladder surgery for a suspected stone in the common bile duct. No stones were found but a tumor was identified at the distal end of the common bile duct. The patient was transferred to UCLA Medical Center for further workup by their hepatobiliary service. A stent was placed in the patient's bile duct to relieve the obstruction and he was thereafter discharged with instructions to return to UCLA to undergo definitive surgery for what was thought to be a possible malignant tumor in the distal bile duct. He was readmitted to UCLA in June 1999, where he underwent a Whipple procedure by the co-defendant Howard Reber, M.D. The tumor in the bile duct proved to be benign, but it demonstrated early dysplastic changes. The patient exhibited some temperature elevations and white blood count elevations during his post-operative recovery at UCLA, which were attributed to the stress of having undergone this major surgery and possibly due to several infarcts in his liver that may have resulted from retraction of the liver during the Whipple surgery. Two weeks following the patient's discharge from UCLA, he came to the emergency room at Long Beach Memorial Hospital with complaints of severe abdominal pain. Within hours after his arrival, he demonstrated evidence of sepsis and went into septic shock. He was seen by Dr. Tomi Evans, a surgeon, who initially considered transferring the patient back to UCLA, but because of his unstable condition, she elected to take the patient to surgery at Long Beach Memorial for an exploratory laparotomy to check for a possible bile leak or intra abdominal bleeder. At surgery, Dr. Evans encountered a cement-like abdominal cavity due massive scar tissue and located an enlarged bleeding spleen. The spleen was removed, but no bile leak could be identified. Five days after her initial surgery, she detected bile coming from an intra abdominal drain, thereby prompting her to re-explore the patient's abdominal cavity, at which time she did identify a bile leak which could not be repaired because of its location and the amount of inflamed tissue in the area. She placed a T-tube for drainage of the bile to the outside from the common duct, but over the next month, the patient's condition continued to deteriorate from overwhelming sepsis despite drainage and antibiotic therapy. Ultimately, the patient exhibited diffuse bleeding from multiple organs, possibly associated with DIC. He went into multi-organ system failure and died approximately one month following his admission to Long Beach Memorial Hospital. The plaintiffs, the decedent's widow and four minor children brought this action against the defendant.
Settlement Discussions
There were no settlement discussions.
Damages
The plaintiffs alleged non-economic damages of $250,000, plus future loss of support of approximately $800,000 over the remaining lifetime of the decedent.
Deliberation
day
Length
two weeks
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