South Florida medical malpractice attorney Tag Archives

$100 Million Palm Beach Medical Malpractice Verdict

August 30, 2024 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

Jurors handed down a $100 million Palm Beach medical malpractice verdict recently to the family of a boy who was mutilated in a botched circumcision that was performed 10 days after the doctor in question had his medical license revoked by the Florida Board of Medicine. The damage award is twice what the family had sued for, illustrating the impact the evidence and the child’s suffering had on those reviewing it. Palm Beach medical malpractice attorney

As longtime Palm Beach medical malpractice attorneys, this case represents an egregious disregard both for patient well-being and professional standards set forth for medical doctors.

According to The Palm Beach Post, the former OB-GYN did not attend the trial, nor did he hire an attorney to represent him in the matter. In previous statements, the ex-doctor stated that the child’s condition was the result of a congenital deformity, rather than a failed circumcision. A midwife testifying on behalf of the family told the court the child, now age 3, had no such deformity at birth.

Whether the family will ever actually receive any of that money remains to be seen. The former doctor has not yet paid a settlement owed to the surviving spouse of another patient who died after giving birth to the couple’s second child. The doctor delivered the child, left the hospital to change his scrubs, and only returned in time to watch his patient die, according to court records.

The doctor was also the subject of a 2017 expose by the local newspaper into the deaths of six patients in procedures gone wrong over his career of three decades. These incidents prompted the state’s medical board to vote to restrict the OB-GYN’s license – a fact he did not tell the aforementioned patient before he was involved in the delivery. Continue reading

Surgeon Faces Hundreds of Florida Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

August 15, 2022 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

A surgeon and the hospital where he worked are facing hundreds of Florida medical malpractice lawsuits alleging life-altering injuries to patients, who allege the doctor’s 2020 retirement due to a progressive neurological disorder came about four years too late. Florida medical malpractice surgery

By then, complaints of the doctor’s shaking hands, slurring speech, unsteady gait, mood swings, involuntary body twitches, and impaired judgment were well-established – both by patients and the doctor’s colleagues. But they were first documented back in 2016. Plaintiffs in the 348 Florida medical malpractice lawsuits filed so far allege the hospital should have intervened much sooner.

As West Palm Beach medical malpractice attorneys, we recognize that in many of these cases, liability often goes beyond the health care provider themselves.

Plaintiffs say the hospital not only should have known about the issue, but had actual knowledge. Specifically, numerous doctors, nurses, and patients specifically told the hospital – on numerous occasions – that they were concerned about the doctor’s condition and seeming impairment. In one instance, he was reportedly seen having difficulty keeping his eyes open during a surgery. In other instances, colleagues were allegedly having to prompt him during surgeries about what needed to be done. Instead of intervening, the hospital allegedly allowed the doctor to continue to become recredentialed and practice, but to schedule high-volume, high-risk surgeries – raking in millions in profit for the hospital.

The doctor resigned from the hospital voluntarily in 2020, shortly after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain condition adversely impacting neurological function and motor coordination. A year later, he forfeited his Florida medical license amid an investigation by the state board. We don’t know what official complaint specifically led to the Florida Board of Medicine’s intervention, but we know they have been piling up since then. Continue reading

What to Know When Filing a Florida Plastic Surgery Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

February 7, 2020 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

A South Florida plastic surgeon facing a medical malpractice lawsuit in the 2016 death of one patient is now facing a new allegation of malpractice after another patient said a breast lift and tummy tuck left her scarred for life. NBC-6 Miami reports the second patient survived, but only after emergency surgery and multiple skin grafts. Doctors at the hospital told her if she had waited another day to have her wounds treated, she would have died. plastic surgery medical malpractice

The Florida Department of Health alleges the surgeon involved breached the standard of medical care expected of him by:

Failing to obtain a complete and comprehensive physical examination of the patient;
Failing to obtain a complete medical history of the patient;
Failing to see or contact the patient within 24 to 48 hours after surgery.

The surgeon does not agree with the allegations, and plans to fight them in court. He was already facing allegations of medical malpractice wrongful death involving a patient who died in 2016 while under his care at a now-closed Hialeah clinic.

When Plastic Surgeons Can Be Held Liable for Damage

Plastic surgery, also sometimes referred to as cosmetic surgery, are generally elective procedures undergone by those who wish to improve their personal appearance. In some cases, they are necessary to correct the after-effects of a serious accident or illness.

Plastic surgery is a field that is attractive to many physicians because it is so lucrative, particularly in high-income areas. However, as our West Palm Beach medical malpractice attorneys have seen, a doctor who does not have the proper knowledge, training, experience, staff or equipment to safely perform plastic surgery can cause serious harm. Continue reading

Military Families Can Now Sue for Medical Malpractice

January 6, 2020 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

Active duty military members now have the right to sue for medical malpractice injuries after a December vote by Congress to enact a new provision to the National Defense Authorization Act. South Florida medical malpractice lawyer

As our South Florida medical malpractice attorneys can explain, long-held legal precedent has been that service members are prohibited from suing the Armed Forces for negligence during active duty that resulted in injury. This principle has come to be called “the Feres Doctrine,” after a watershed 1950 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Feres v. U.S. It’s been used to toss dozens of cases of serious medical malpractice injury suffered by service members – or discourage them from filing any claim altogether.

The soldier for whom the doctrine is named was a highly-decorated WWII veteran who parachuted into Normandy during D-Day. He prevailed through some of the worst fighting of the war – but died in barracks fire while on base in the U.S. His widow filed a negligence lawsuit against the Army under the Federal Tort Claims Act for its negligence in causing the fire (unsafe due to faulty heating system). The ruling that resulted denied her – and countless other active-duty soldiers and surviving family members – from holding the U.S. government accountable for negligence that occurred during active duty. Continue reading

Report: Hundreds of Florida Doctors Still Practice Despite Numerous Medical Malpractice Payouts

May 22, 2019 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

Doctors who have paid out numerous Florida medical malpractice claims continue to practice, despite a state statute approved by voters more than a decade ago intended to strip such physicians of their medical licenses. That’s according to a recent investigation into state insurance records by a South Florida television news team, NBC-5 in West Palm Beach. medical malpractice attorney West Palm Beach

Our own medical malpractice attorneys in West Palm Beach have encountered physicians in medical negligence claims who had previously lost or settled a number of prior lawsuits asserting they failed to abide the applicable standard of care in the course of medicinal practice, resulting in serious harm to patients.

The reporters discovered hundreds of still-practicing physicians who had paid out in excess of $460 million for Florida medical malpractice lawsuits stemming from the deaths of nearly 1,400 patients over the last 10 years.

This in itself is pretty stunning. However, it’s particularly striking in light of a 2004 Florida constitutional amendment approved by voters called the “three strikes rule.” Continue reading

Florida Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death Law Challenged by Family

April 27, 2019 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

Florida medical malpractice law needs to change. That’s the stance of the surviving family of a U.S. Marine veteran who died after allegedly receiving negligent medical care following a South Florida motorcycle accident. Despite this, the man’s survivors haven’t been able to file a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit because of a provision of Florida statute that prevents such claims from being brought by anyone accept for a spouse, minor children or parents of an adult under the age of 25. West Palm Beach medical malpractice lawyer

The specific law in question (which our West Palm Beach wrongful death lawyers can explain has been in place for nearly three decades) is F.S. 768.21. Its effect is that if a person dies as a result of suspected medical malpractice, there will be no recourse if the patient was unmarried, over the age of 25 or had no minor children. It is a law ripe for challenge considering the very same acts of negligence that would underlie a medical malpractice injury lawsuit would be grounds for litigation – if the person lives. There are no available avenues for accountability, however, if that same individual dies as a result of medical negligence.

NBC-5 in West Palm Beach reports the patient in question was a 32-year-old man from Port St. Lucie, a veteran with a fiancee who was helping to raise her 3-year-old daughter, whom he planned to adopt. He was involved in a Florida motorcycle accident. He reportedly hit a deep pothole, swerved to avoid striking a friend’s motorcycle and in so doing put his leg down when he crashed, resulting in a broken leg. Continue reading

Florida Supreme Court: Anesthesiologist May Be Partially Liable, Even if Errors Not Prime Cause of Patient Death

January 14, 2019 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

A divided Florida Supreme Court ruled that even if a doctor’s mistake isn’t the primary cause of death, Florida medical malpractice laws nonetheless allow that doctor to be liable for his or her part in it if the failure/ misconduct substantially contributed to it – thus reversing an appellate court decision in a doctor’s favor. Dissenting justices didn’t argue with the conclusion by the majority, but instead insisted the court shouldn’t have taken up the case in the first place because it didn’t assert a conflict between two lower courts.

The family has already been awarded $7.5 million from the two surgeons in the case, and this ruling may entitle them to additional damages from another defendant.

Naples medical malpractice lawyers know this decision clarifying that a physician’s malpractice need not be the main reason a patient died in order for him/ her to be liable will be welcome news for current and future claimants in medical negligence claims, especially those wherein the primary cause of death is in sharp dispute.

Did “Alarm Fatigue” Play a Role in Your South Florida Medical Malpractice Injury?

June 17, 2018 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

Walk into almost any hospital emergency room or intensive care unit – and what do you hear? There is the almost constant whoosh-and-honk of the ventilator. There might be an infusion pump, beeping in a high-pitch tone every six seconds or so. Blood pressure monitors will let out one single long tone after another. All these medical devices contribute to something we as medical malpractice attorneys recognize as “alarm fatigue.”

Although all of these monitors have their purpose, most of the time they don’t require any action. When medical professionals (nurses, in particular) grow accustomed to this constant din of noise – sometimes several hundred alarms daily – they can grow desensitized to it. Others, to avoid becoming overwhelmed, may turn the volume down. Some might simply ignore them. This could have serious and possibly deadly consequences to patients.

Patient safety advocates and medical malpractice attorneys have been raising concern about this issue for many years. However, it’s become an increasingly more pressing problem as technology evolves and the medical device community emerges with an increasing number of complex, loud machines – all intended to save lives, but contributing to this alarm fatigue issue. Continue reading

Florida Supreme Court Sides With Plaintiff in Med-Mal Lawsuit

April 29, 2018 | by David J. Halberg, Esq.

The Florida Supreme Court recently sided plaintiffs in a dispute regarding witness testimony in a medical malpractice lawsuit involving a young child forced to undergo a kidney transplant due to alleged failure to diagnose a chronic illness by her primary care doctor.

In the case of Gutierrez v. Vargas, plaintiff reportedly suffered from a chronic kidney disease that went undiagnosed for six years, ultimately resulting in so much damage she had no choice but to undergo a kidney transplant. Defendant argues plaintiff suffered a different disease that could not have been diagnosed sooner. The case went to trial and plaintiff was awarded $4.1 million in damages.

Defendant appealed on the grounds the decision conflicts directly with those of other district courts on a question of law. Specifically, defense argued the lower court should not have allowed several of the girl’s treating physician to testify at trial about their diagnostic opinions or allowed rebuttal testimony from a second pathology expert. After the judgment was reversed and remanded for trial by Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, the state high court ruled there was no abuse of discretion and affirmed the trial court’s conclusion. Continue reading