Medical Malpractice Defense

LeClairRyan’s Medical Malpractice Defense team is formidable in both size and experience level. All of our partners are first-chair trial lawyers, and many of our veteran litigators have been recognized as “Super Lawyers”  or "Best Lawyers in America" by legal publications from across the country. This “bring-out-the-big-guns” strategy is well advised given the enormous scope and scale of the U.S. medical liability crisis, with its profusion of costly—and often spurious—legal actions against medical providers and professionals of all types.  According to the Physician Insurers Association of America, for example, the median medical jury award in medical liability cases more than tripled from 1997 to 2006, with the average award during this period rising from $347,134 to $637,134. Meanwhile, median and average settlements rose from $100,000 to $204,500, and from $212,861 to $335,847, respectively.

Our Medical Malpractice Defense team has decades of combined experience in representing physicians, dentists, chiropractors, hospitals, nursing homes, managed-care organizations, medical colleges, self-insured health systems and other clients in state and federal courts and before various professional boards. Unlike some of our competitors, our attorneys do not shy away from court, where they have a proven track record of successfully defending clients, often in the most difficult of venues. Indeed, in the last three years alone we have tried 52 medical malpractice cases to verdict.

Our team represents clients in matters related to a diverse array of legal issues and medical specialties, including anesthesiology, dentistry, emergency medicine, family practice, gastroenterology, general surgery, internal medicine, neurosurgery, nursing, obstetrics and gynecology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, pediatrics, podiatry, radiology and urology. Given these divergent areas of focus, we are able to match each case with the strength and expertise of a particular lawyer. This “deep bench” is part of the reason our attorneys are frequently cited in publications listing the largest medical malpractice defense verdicts of the year.

Our attorneys serve as national counsel to several major health insurance companies, and also help local healthcare providers and their counsel deal with matters related to complex litigation. Our services range from helping clients monitor their claims reserves to acting as primary counsel at trial. Medical malpractice litigation arising from birth trauma and brain injury can be particularly costly and complex, and we have extensive experience with such cases.

While most firms offer post-event counsel, we offer real-time counsel to help clients manage potentially explosive issues—whether an out-of-control patient, a thorny question about privacy or an unannounced investigation. Indeed, our attorneys routinely work with patient-care teams, public relations staff and law enforcement agencies to resolve problematic situations as they happen. The goal is to be proactive to reduce our clients’ liability exposure whenever possible. Toward that end, we often have standing arrangements with clients to provide such services around the clock.

Our experienced attorneys, many of whom have served on the bioethics committees of hospitals and on the boards of long-term care facilities, are available to educate clients and their staff on emerging risk-management issues. Adept at handling clients’ administrative needs, we routinely represent healthcare professionals in tribunals such as medical staff credentialing committees and state licensing boards. We also appear before administrative law judges on matters related to reimbursement and taxation. With decades of combined experience in both institutional representation and at trial, our arsenal of “big guns” has indeed earned a national reputation for getting positive results.

Because of our team’s breadth of knowledge, we provide well-reasoned case analyses to assist our clients with pretrial litigation decisions and with their assessments for each case. We are absolutely committed to serving the needs of our medical care providers and their insurers. If mediation is the proper resolution to a particular case, we will recommend mediation, with all of the supporting case assessment to justify such alternatives to trial. Our clients will always be aware of case developments and will have the information necessary for every step of the pretrial litigation process.

Representative cases:

• Won defense verdict on behalf of anesthesiologist charged with improperly giving spinal anesthesia to anti-coagulated patient. Patient, who now suffers from severe nerve damage to both legs, claimed she developed a spinal hematoma in her thoracic spine as a result of the procedure. Proved to the satisfaction of the jury, that the spinal anesthesia was appropriate since the warfarin anti-coagulation therapy, which was started the night before surgery, had not yet caused a hyper-coagulative state. Successfully argued that the spinal lesion that led to patient’s current disability was actually a calcified herniated thoracic disc, entirely unrelated to the spinal anesthesia.
• Won a defense verdict in favor of a prominent Bronx, N.Y., orthopedic surgeon who was accused by one of his patients of mismanaging a lateral malleolar fracture. New York County jury required less than two hours to return a verdict in favor of our client, unanimously concluding that the doctor did not deviate from the standard of care.
• Obtained a dismissal of all claims made against a prominent Manhattan Internist accused of malpractice by the family of a 79-year-old stroke victim who developed decubitus ulcers and died of osteomyelitis. Following a three week jury trial, during which we successfully established that our client’s care of the seriously ill patient was exemplary, all causes of action were dismissed with prejudice. 
• Secured a dismissal of all claims of medical malpractice brought on behalf of a brain damaged child against a Brooklyn, N.Y., ob/gyn who provided labor and delivery care. 
• Defense verdict for a general surgeon in Norfolk, Va., in a matter in which a catheter remnant was left in the patient during a VP shunt replacement. The shunt migrated to and tore a hole in the patient’s colon resulting in 3 ventral hernia repairs and abdominoplasty. 
• Defense verdict for a gastroenterologist in Northampton County, Va., in a matter involving a perforated esophagus of a 71-year-old woman during an attempted removal of obstruction with a rigid scope. The perforation resulted in an open surgical repair, a 66-day hospital stay and $600,000 in medical expenses.
• Defense verdict for a gynecologic surgeon in Richmond, Va., in a matter involving the removal of a large cyst from the patient’s bowel that resulted in an occult perforation of bowel and temporary colostomy.
• Defense verdict for a neurosurgeon in Norfolk, Va., in a matter in which the plaintiff claimed that the surgeon placed a screw too far through the fractured odontoid peg and vertebrae in the patient’s spine and the screw was pressing on the spinal column. The subsequent treating neurosurgeon who performed the repair testified as the plaintiff’s expert.
• Defense verdict for a neurosurgeon in Fairfax, Va., in a matter involving an alleged failure to diagnose ventricular enlargement and hydrocephalus resulting in brain herniation and ultimately, the death of a 38-year-old patient.
• Defense verdict for a gynecologic surgeon in Fairfax, Va., in a matter alleging failure to remove both ovaries during a planned surgery. Only one of the ovaries was removed and a cyst subsequently developed on the un-removed second ovary that resulted in another surgery.
• Defense verdict in Fredericksburg, Va., in an ophthalmology case alleging failure to diagnosis and treat glaucoma in a child who was under the defendant’s care from birth to age two. The glaucoma caused legal blindness. Plaintiff’s experts were the child’s treating opthalmologists from Johns Hopkins.
• Defense verdict in Williamsburg, Va., in a wrongful death case involving a family practitioner who allegedly failed to assess and treat a complaint of chest pain. Patient died of an MI two days later.
• Defense verdict in Roanoke, Va., in which a podiatrist allegedly removed too much of a bone spur on the patient’s heel resulting in the Achilles tendon separating from the bone.
• Non-suit before closing in Fairfax, Va., in a matter in which a two week old infant died within 24 hours of being released from the emergency room. Plaintiff alleged failure to diagnose urethra defect and distended bladder that ultimately caused sepsis and death.
• Defense verdict in Richmond, Va., in a matter involving the death of a 47-year-old from diabetic coma seven hours after being evaluated by family practitioner.
• Defense verdict in Chesapeake, Va., in a matter in which the Plaintiff claimed a 69 year old man died of liver failure from alleged toxicity from Crestor. Defendant did not order liver function testing as recommended by the Crestor package insert.
• Defense verdict in Virginia Beach, Va., in a matter alleging failure to treat a post-operative knee infection that resulted in knee replacement.
• Defense verdict for an orthopedic surgeon in a multi-defendant case in Richmond, Va., in a matter in which a 73-year-old vomited and aspirated during anesthesia for a femur fracture repair. Patient was intubated and died three months later from ARDS. Plaintiff alleged the orthopedic surgeon did not advise anesthesiologist of potential GI bleed symptoms. Claim was for $2 million in medical expenses.
• Defense verdict in Lynchburg, Virginia hand surgery case in which plaintiff claimed injury to the palmar cutaneous and recurrent motor branches of the median nerve from a carpal tunnel surgery with a finding that plaintiff failed to prove standard of care violation or causation.
• Defense verdict in a battery case in Danville, Virginia for gastroenterologist in which plaintiff claimed a second insertion of endoscope to stent the common bile duct, after diagnostic endoscopy scope removal, was not part of endoscopy procedure included in consent.
• Three day Danville, Virginia trial with a defense verdict for obstetrician in a case involving the death of a 36 year-old wife and mother following the birth of her third child; the plaintiff alleged that the mother developed uterine atony that led to DIC.
• Defense verdict in nine day jury trial for Connecticut anesthesiologist alleged to have damaged vocal cords during intubation, purportedly causing voice and breathing problems. Plaintiff also claimed lack of informed consent.
• Defense verdict in 16 day jury trial for Connecticut orthopedic surgeon claimed to have caused vascular and sciatic nerve injuries during hip revision surgery. Defense included use of hip surgery video to illustrate the difficulty in identifying vascular and nerve structures during procedure and demonstration of surgery tools.
• Directed verdict for the defense in Connecticut for ENT physician at the end of a plaintiff's case in a five day jury trial involving cerebrospinal fluid leak during sinus surgery.
• Judgment for defendant neck surgeon in Connecticut in fraud and misrepresentation case concerning medical procedure causing loss of insurance coverage.
• Defense verdict in 10 day Connecticut bench trial in case of gynecologic surgeon failing to diagnose post vaginal hysterectomy ovarian abscess or failure to properly treat cuff collection to prevent ovarian abscess. The jury trial was requested late, and defense won their motion to object to the jury trial.
• Defense verdict in two week jury trial in a New York Supreme Court case involving blindness to a 45 year old allegedly caused by improper timing of retina surgery.