Defense for the hospital argued that the laceration occurred during the cesarean delivery and was a known risk for this procedure. A resident obstetrician testified that she remembered the baby's hands being in the surgical field and "fighting" to come out as soon as the uterus was surgically entered. This, she claimed, was "the strangest thing she had ever seen."
Defense for the women's medical group argued that the laceration could not have occurred during the surgery based on the infant's face-down position at the time of delivery. It was alleged that the laceration must have occurred after the baby was handed off to a hospital staff member.
According to a published report, a $2,756,442 verdict was returned against the hospital. The women's medical group received a defense verdict.
Failure to Treat Ascending Cholangitis
In December 2002, a 45-year-old woman presented to the hospital with right upper quadrant abdominal pain, a urinary tract infection, and a pelvic infection. She also had a history of irritable bowel syndrome. The defendant family doctor, who had provided the patient's care for 10 years, admitted her and prescribed oral antibiotics to treat the urinary tract infection and the pelvic infection. Ultrasonography and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography showed a 3.0- to 4.0-cm mass at the head of the pancreas, a dilated common bile duct, and gallstones.
Lab test results included elevations in bilirubin, white blood cell count, and liver enzymes. The defendant gastroenterologist was called in for a consult.
Over the next few days, the woman's abdominal pain waxed and waned and shifted in location; her temperature dropped. After four days, her bilirubin level and white blood cell count spiked, so IV antibiotics were started. Two days later, the patient arrested and coded and remained in a coma until her death in May 2003.
The plaintiff claimed that the defendants failed to diagnose and treat ascending cholangitis from the time of the patient's admission until her cardiac arrest, resulting in sepsis and death.
The defendants claimed that the decedent did not have ascending cholangitis until two days before she went into arrest, at which time the condition was properly addressed. The defendants also claimed that there were no signs or symptoms of sepsis before that time and that the decedent had refused to consent to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) or surgical intervention. The defendants contended that a CT-guided biopsy was not performed because of the decedent's obesity.
The plaintiff denied that an ERCP or surgical intervention had been recommended and refused, since there was no record of this in the medical chart.
A defense verdict was returned.