Medical Malpractice Defense

Our medical malpractice group includes highly skilled trial lawyers with significant experience handling claims of medical negligence. We represent, among others, a major teaching institution, its hospital system, its managed care organization and its faculty physicians in a wide array of medical malpractice claims, and an integrated healthcare system with several affiliated entities specializing in geriatric care. We also act as monitoring counsel for an insurance carrier that provides excess insurance to a major hospital system and managed care organization, and we appear on behalf of physicians and nurses in disciplinary proceedings before New York State regulatory agencies.

Our approach is to become immersed in the medicine, to obtain early expert reviews, to understand our clients’ concerns and to develop a close rapport with the physicians we represent. Our seasoned legal nurse consultants are fully integrated in our defense team; they work closely with our lead trial lawyers on each case, obtaining and interpreting medical records, conducting searches for pertinent medical literature, and identifying superior experts. Several of our lawyers have taken special classes at a major medical school, and have directly observed surgeries and other medical procedures. Our experience and familiarity with medical issues, and the underlying medicine itself, translates well into other aspects of our toxic tort, medical device and pharmaceutical, and mass tort practices.

We have tried many medical malpractice cases to verdict with excellent results, and we also have used mediation and other settlement techniques to resolve malpractice cases successfully, even before suit has been brought. Just as triage is important in medicine, it is important in medical malpractice defense. Thus, we assess cases early and, working closely with our clients, develop the best strategy for each case.

Representative cases defended through trial include:

• Defense verdict in claim of improper screening for surgery of patient who died of cardiomyopathy the evening after surgery;
• Defense verdict in case of esophageal tear during intubation for surgery;
• Defense verdict where plaintiff alleged missed testicular torsion causing infertility;
• Defense verdict in case alleging loss of kidney due to allegedly improper surgical technique on abdominal aortic aneurism repair;
• Case withdrawn during trial after plaintiff’s expert admitted during cross-examination that his criticism of surgical technique of vascular surgeon conducting sympathectomy was unfounded;
• Defense verdict in case involving claim of failure to properly treat patient for sickle cell disease, resulting in stroke;
• Defense verdict in case alleging misdiagnosis of brain tumor;
• Defense verdict in wrongful death case alleging failure to diagnose esophageal cancer timely;
• Defense verdict in wrongful death case alleging medical malpractice and failure to obtain informed consent related to organ transplant surgery; and
• Defense verdict in case involving claims related to development of sacral decubitus ulcer during patient’s hospitalization.