McAloon & Friedman achieved a full defendant’s verdict in the Supreme Court, Kings County, on behalf of a metropolitan hospital plaintiff sued, claiming that negligent obstetric and pediatric care caused profound injuries to a newborn including spastic quadriplegia, mental retardation and blindness. Trial partner Ted Rosenzweig successfully represented the defendant hospital and its physicians as sole defense counsel, addressing and rebutting each of the liability claims. Plaintiff sought to prove $50,000,000 in damages.
CASE SUMMARIES
In a case tried in the Supreme Court, New York County, trial partner Ted Rosenzweig successfully defended a New York City obstetrician in a case involving a claim that the physician negligently delivered the second twin who sustained a severe brachial plexus injury (Erb’s/Klumpke’s palsy) with rupture of five nerve roots resulting in significant limitations in the use of the child’s hand and arm. Plaintiff contended that the child should have been delivered by cesarean section given his footling breech presentation, alleging that a vaginal delivery was prohibited by prevailing obstetric standards.
Mr. Rosenzweig was able to educate the jury with the recommendations of the American College of Obstetricians/Gynecologists (ACOG) for delivery of twins and achieve a defendant’s verdict despite an allegation of more than $25,000,000 in damages.
In a case tried in Supreme Court Queens County, partner Brendan Lantier represented all of the defendants in a “brain damaged baby” case in which the fetal monitoring strips for the labor had been lost in a warehouse fire. The plaintiffs claimed that those strips would have shown fetal distress necessitating an emergency caesarean section. Additionally the plaintiffs claimed a failure by the physicians to appreciate the seriousness of the plaintiff’s preeclampsia and inappropriate use of Pitocin and Demerol. It was claimed that these departures from accepted practice caused fetal hypoxia which in turn led to the infant developing severe neurological damage including cerebral palsy.
The case was tried before a jury and resulted in a verdict in favor of all the defendants.
In this case, partner Brendan Lantier represented all of the defendants in a claim by the plaintiff’s that an epidural anesthesia, chloroprocaine was improperly administered into the subarachnoid space during the course of a labor and delivery. It was claimed that this caused a respiratory arrest of the mother resulting in permanent neurological damage as well as the infant plaintiff at five hours of age. We presented expert testimony that the catheter wandered into the subarachnoid space which is not preventable and was not malpractice on the part of the physicians involved. The case was tried before a jury in Supreme Court Kings County.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of the hospital and the physicians.
McAloon & Friedman successfully defended plaintiff’s claim that her labor and delivery was negligently managed which allegedly caused the child to have neurologic deficits, hearing loss and learning disabilities. The mother claimed that the obstetrical staff, including physicians and midwives, failed to adequately monitor after her due date passed and that she should have been delivered earlier. The trial partner Laura Shapiro introduced expert testimony from specialists in Maternal Fetal Medicine, Pediatric Neurology, Pediatric Otolaryngology and Genetics to show that the appropriate prenatal tests were performed and interpreted and that the most significant injury, hearing loss was more likely caused by a genetic mutation rather than hypoxia. The case was noteworthy for the absence of fetal heart monitor strips which had been sent to storage and could not be found. Ms. Shapiro called witnesses to explain the process of record storage and show that the loss of the strips was unintentional and irrelevant since what they showed was not really in controversy.
The jury returned a full defendants’ verdict for all defendants, including the hospital, the obstetrician and the midwives, all of whom were represented by Ms. Shapiro.
The firm, represented by partner Laura Shapiro won a hotly contested summary judgment motion in Supreme Court, Bronx County for a metropolitan hospital sued for alleged obstetric malpractice. With detailed expert affirmations and medical literature, we showed that plaintiff’s theory, that there should have been an earlier delivery because of the presence of meconium at birth, was wrong and unsupported in the literature and that an earlier delivery was neither warranted nor would it have changed the outcome. We showed that the child’s condition upon delivery ruled out a hypoxic injury and that meconium does not establish that there was fetal distress.
The court granted summary judgment to the hospital and dismissed the case, finding that plaintiff’s experts had not met their burden of showing that there was a legitimate question for a jury to decide. The order of dismissal was affirmed on appeal.
Trial partner Charles K. Faillace achieved a defense verdict in Supreme Court, New York County, in a case involving nerve damage to plaintiff’s arm/shoulder. Plaintiff had a long-standing right shoulder injury which was surgically repaired by the co-defendant surgeon at a major hospital represented by Mr. Faillace. After the surgery, plaintiff complained of pain in the contralateral shoulder and asserted that the hospital staff and the anesthesiologist, all of whom were represented by Mr. Faillace, had malpositioned him during surgery. Mr. Faillace refuted the claims and called persuasive experts who supported the care and showed that the surgical position was standard.
The jury deliberated for less than one hour and returned a defense verdict.
Trial partner Adam Goldsmith was successful in defending a physician in Supreme Court, Kings County, who was sued for allegedly failing to diagnose and treat a foot ulcer which caused gangrene, osteomyelitis and a below the knee amputation. Plaintiff claimed that the physician failed to timely order imaging studies and a vascular consult. Mr. Goldsmith rebutted these allegations with experts who demonstrated that the infection and ultimate amputation were unavoidable consequences of plaintiff’s diabetes.
The jury found in favor of the physician.
