Personal Injury Law

Medical Malpractice Claim Leads to $4.6 Million Jury Award

By guest-writer

A Minnesota jury recently awarded nearly $5 million to the family of a woman who bled to death after a cesarean section went horribly awry. According to reports, the grieving family sued Monticello-Big Lake Community Hospital under theories of medical malpractice and wrongful death.

The story that led to the personal injury lawsuit is tragic, to say the least. Soon after giving birth to her first child, Claudia Calcagno of Albertville, Minnesota began hemorrhaging and died a few hours later.

The attorneys for the woman’s family claimed that her doctors were not able to perform a life-saving surgery because the hospital was unable to provide enough blood for the necessary transfusion. Tragically, the attorneys claimed that the hospital had failed to keep a steady supply of A negative blood, the type needed to save Mrs. Calcagno.

In an even worse oversight, the attorneys further claimed that the hospital did, in fact, have some of the right type of blood available, but the hospital staff failed to give the doctors this information.

Two doctors were named in the lawsuit, but they were found innocent. Instead, the jury leveled the hefty penalty against the hospital itself. The jury award included money for loss of consortium for Mrs. Calcagno’s husband and past and future economic losses.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys had argued that the doctors on duty should also be found negligent, but the hospital’s lawyers successfully argued that the doctors on duty had been operating under the strict orders of their superiors, and therefore not personally liable.

Mrs. Calcagno’s fatal delivery occurred in January of 2008 when she was 41 weeks pregnant. Her labor lasted for several hours before the obstetrician decided to perform the cesarean section.

In a heart-warming end to a tragic tale, her young son Vico survived the birth and is now perfectly healthy. With the aid of Vico’s grandparents, Vico’s father has decided to stay at home for his son’s first few years.

While multi-million dollar personal injury awards are relatively unusual across the country, they have been awarded before in Minnesota, as well as several other states.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. In fact, medical malpractice results in tens of thousands of personal injuries each year. On occasion, these injuries are severe enough to lead to death.

Medical malpractice may arise from misdiagnoses, inappropriate medical treatment for your particular condition, or faulty medicine prescriptions. As a result of these potential errors, you are entitled to protect your rights as a patient and seek injury compensation if you believe you  have been mistreated by a physician.

If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of negligent medical treatment, contact a local injury lawyer today to learn more about your legal rights.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on November 01, 2010 (boomark / email).