Confidential
Settlement – $166,500Court
L.A. Superior Santa Monica
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Experts
Plaintiff
Jack Liskin
(medical)
Dale H. Rice
(medical)
Defendant
Harold Bray
(medical)
Facts
In May, 1996, the plaintiff sought consultation with the defendant ENT physician because of recurrent sinus congestion. By the time she left defendant's multispecialty clinic, she had consented not only to major nasal/sinus reconstructive surgery, but also liposuction of the abdomen and a bladder suspension. She underwent these three procedures, the first one including the implantation of a nasal prosthesis. Shortly after this operation, she noted pain, redness, swelling and drainage at the operative site. The defendant ENT ran a clinic at which he employed physician assistants to see patients on follow up visits, with the physician seeing those patient he felt needed to be seen by a physician. The chief physicians' assistant turned out to be a person who was not and had never been licensed in this state as a physicians' assistants, and at depostion said he never asked about the assistant's licensure and did not know that he had to be licensed to supervise physician assistants. In the six and eight weeks while plaintiff suffered a wound infection, she was never seen by a doctor in her clinic visits for the problem. Rather the physicians' assistant who was not a licensed physicians' assistant supervised her care, and never got a culture or a gram stain, but rather treated plaintiff with one antibiotic for the two months, despite clear clinical failure of the treatment. After about two months, defendant ENT man evaluated the patient. Over the next six weeks, he and his employees did multiple incision and drainages of the infection, and took cultures that repeatedly showed and organism resistant to the drugs they were using. They did not remove the foreign body, the implant, that was the niduse of the infection. Six months after the initial operation, the defendant ENT performed a second major reconstructive nasal surgery, this time removing the implant. He claimed to have performed a "Caldwell Luc" sinus operation. After this, defendant did some post operative follow up for several weeks, after which plaintiff left his care in favor of the care of the chief of otolaryngology at Medical Center. The defendant examined plaintiff, and determined that she could not have had a "Caldwell-Luc" procedure because the requisite scars for that procedure were not present in the plaintiff, that she would need further reconstructive surgery to undo the damage done by the prior procedures, that her wound infection was a direct result of the presence of a foreign body, the nasal implant, and that the nasal implant should not, under the standard of care, have been placed in the first place. Over the next two years, plaintiff took continual antibiotics in an attempt to clear up the infections of her sinuses, and to permit further surgery, needing a water-pik daily to lavage the sinuses. She has since had once such further reconstruction, and may need another.
Settlement Discussions
The plaintiff made a C.C.P. º998 offer of _____________. The defendant ENT offered $137,000 and $29,000 from an employee surgeon who did the initial operation after consultation with the defendant.
Injuries
The plaintiff suffered unnecessary insertion of a nasal prosthesis during sinus surgery, failure to treat a post operative wound infection in the area of the foreign body, need two major surgeries to correct the anatomic changes from the improper initial surgery and defective follow up.
Other Information
The settlement was reached approximately _____ years and ______ months after the case was filed.
For reprint rights or to order a copy of your photo:
Email
jeremy@reprintpros.com
for prices.
Direct dial: 949-702-5390