According to USLaw, the average settlement in a cut bile duct gallbladder medical malpractice case is $250,000.
Recently in Maryland Malpractice Settlements & Verdicts Category
The Maryland Daily Record reports that a Baltimore City jury ordered a doctor to pay $670,000 to a man who required emergency surgery to remove a portion of his colon because of injuries suffered during a routine colonoscopy in 2006. The doctor allegedly punctured Johnson's colon in several places during the colonscopy according to the complaint. Johnson was taken to the ER at Siani Hospitalwhere surgeons removed some of his colon (Siani was not named in the lawsuit).
The median compensatory award for teeth and mouth soft tissue injuries, infections, gum disease, nerve damage, and TMJ injuries is $25,000, according to Jury Verdict Research's recent study earlier this year.
This is not a particularly telling statistic for settlement value of individual cases.
This is not a particularly telling statistic for settlement value of individual cases.
I blogged last month about a defense malpractice verdict in Towson, Maryland in a colonoscopy case. I stumbled upon an old verdict report from Baltimore City in a colonoscopy case where the Plaintiff was awarded $390,481 for a circumferential tear of the sigmoid colon.
The Plaintiff, a 59 year-old custodian, had a routine in office colonoscopy where she nearly total circumferential tear of her sigmoid colon. She was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital for immediate surgery. She incurred over $40,000 in medical bills and was required to use of a colostomy bag for approximately five months and had to have a second surgery to reverse the colostomy and remove the bag.
Obviously, not a huge verdict in a malpractice lawsuit in Maryland. But the jury may have been swayed on damages by the fact that as serious as the injuries were, the Plaintiff thankfully made a full recovery.
The Plaintiff, a 59 year-old custodian, had a routine in office colonoscopy where she nearly total circumferential tear of her sigmoid colon. She was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital for immediate surgery. She incurred over $40,000 in medical bills and was required to use of a colostomy bag for approximately five months and had to have a second surgery to reverse the colostomy and remove the bag.
Obviously, not a huge verdict in a malpractice lawsuit in Maryland. But the jury may have been swayed on damages by the fact that as serious as the injuries were, the Plaintiff thankfully made a full recovery.
I think malpractice lawyers are always interested when they see a verdict in a malpractice case, particularly verdicts in the same states in which the lawyer has cases. Certainly, Verdicts obtained in medical malpractice lawsuits are invariably misleading because every cancer misdiagnosis case is different. The axiom that "every case is different" is trite but true.
With that caveat, this is a not so random sampling of cancer misdiagnosis lawsuits that have gone to verdict in Maryland in recent years. The purpose of listing these verdicts below is to give Maryland cancer misdiagnosis lawyers a chance to take a look at the type of cases in which juries have found error in the failure to diagnose or treat cancer.
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The Maryland Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog has a post on the average Maryland medical malpractice settlement or verdict.
Average malpractice verdict data is interesting - very interesting - but has little to do with individual medical malpractice cases in Maryland.
There is not a lot of recent data out there regarding the chances that a malpractice lawyer will acheive a recovery for the injured victim at trial. I was able to find one recently. According an old Jury Verdict Research analysis in 2003, 34% of medical malpractice verdicts end with a Plaintiff's verdict. The JRR study looked at medical malpractice cases in which the plaintiff brought malpractice lawsuit against a hospital, doctor or both. This study included cases involving cancer misdiagnosis, childbirth, delayed treatment, diagnosis, lack of informed consent, negligent surgery and negligent supervision.
You have to remember that this study includes victims who tried to represent themselves or were not represented by a quality Maryland malpractice lawyer. This can make all the difference in the world. I suspect if you look at cases with good medical malpractice lawyers, you would find a number that approaches 50%. Even more importantly for malpractice victims who file a malpractice lawsuit, it is worth remembering that that the best malpractice lawsuits typically - although not always - settle.
This JRR study also looked at the most frequently claimed injuries in successful medical malpractice cases. Wrongful death malpractice cases accounted for 23% of the total number of plaintiff's' medical malpractice verdicts, with brain damage coming in second at 9%. Genital injuries accounted for 7% and leg injuries accounted for 5% hospital malpractice lawsuits.