$______ RECOVERY - MEDICAL MALPRACTICE - NEUROLOGY - HEALTHY 27-YEAR-OLD PLAINTIFF CONTENDS FAILURE TO DIAGNOSE AND TREAT CEREBRAL ARTERIOVENOUS MALFORMATION - NUMEROUS UNNECESSARY SURGERIES CULMINATING IN LEFT CRANIOTOMY - PERMANENT, CHRONIC SPASTICITY OF RIGHT SIDE OF BRAIN, GLOBAL APHASIA AND HEMIPLEGIA - PLAINTIFF IMMOBILE, MARGINALLY VERBAL AND FULLY DISABLED - LIFELONG CARE.

• Pages: 3-4

COMMENTARY

Although this is a phenomenal damage award of $120 million, absent a legislative claims

bill, the plaintiff will most likely recovery only the statutory liability cap of $200,000.

The factual scenario of the case poised an interesting issue regarding the “course and

scope” of the defendant driver’s employment. Evidence showed the accident occurred in the

evening more than two hours after the employee had ended his work day. However, in

route home from the gym, he turned on to a side road to confirm that the gate to an elec-

trical substation was secured. He then made a U-turn to continue home, when the accident

occurred. The defendant maintained that the utility driver was not in the course and scope

of his employment at the time of the collision. The defendant was denied summary judg-

ment on that issue and took an unsuccessful interlocutory appeal.

The trial court’s ruling was upheld, holding that the “dual-purpose” doctrine applied, as

the employee was concurrently serving a business purpose as well as a personal purpose of

driving home. The court would not allow the defendant’s “outside the scope of employ-

ment” argument to reach the jury. That ruling is, in part, the basis of the defendant’s pend-

ing post-trial motions.

$10,000,000 RECOVERY – MEDICAL MALPRACTICE –

NEUROLOGY – HEALTHY 27-YEAR-OLD PLAINTIFF

CONTENDS FAILURE TO DIAGNOSE AND TREAT

CEREBRAL ARTERIOVENOUS MALFORMATION –

NUMEROUS UNNECESSARY SURGERIES CULMINATING

IN LEFT CRANIOTOMY – PERMANENT, CHRONIC

SPASTICITY OF RIGHT SIDE OF BRAIN, GLOBAL

APHASIA AND HEMIPLEGIA – PLAINTIFF IMMOBILE,

MARGINALLY VERBAL AND FULLY DISABLED –

LIFELONG CARE.

Camden County, NJ

This medical malpractice action arose from the defendants’

collective failure to properly diagnose and treat a cerebral

arteriovenous malformation in an otherwise healthy 27-year-old

woman, leading to serious, permanent injury. The defendants

denied any malpractice and asserted that the care of the plaintiff

was appropriate under the presenting circumstances. The

defendants argued that the plaintiff’s condition was such that her

outcome would not have changed if certain actions by the

defendants were or were not undertaken in her treatment.

On December 6, 2012, the plaintiff presented to the emergency depart-

ment of the defendant hospital with complaints of headache, visual dis-

turbance, and dizziness. While in the E.R., diagnostic testing was

performed and the plaintiff was found to have a superficial lesion on the

posterior left occipital region consistent with arteriovenous malformation.

The plaintiff was admitted to the ICU of the hospital for left occipital AVM.

The plaintiff came under the care of the defendant staff of the defen-

dant hospital until her discharge on December 10, 2012 following a ce-

rebral angiography and embolization of her left AVM. Resection of the

plaintiff’s AVM was not performed, but instead, the plaintiff underwent 4

additional embolization procedures.

The plaintiffs contended that they did not receive appropriate or ade-

quate information regarding the material risks, benefits, and alternatives

of the repeated embolization procedures, including but not limited to

the significant risk of the plaintiff sustaining a stroke. On November 18,

2013, the plaintiff was admitted to Kennedy Hospital for her fifth

embolization procedure during which the plaintiff consequently devel-

oped and suffered significant complications that were not timely recog-

nized. The subject surgery had to be aborted and the plaintiff was

thereafter taken for a CT-scan followed by an MRI of the head after a sig-

SUMMARIES WITH TRIAL ANALYSIS 3

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