Defense Verdict in High-Stakes Health Care Liability Case

Defense verdict in a health care liability case following a six-week jury trial where the demand was $12 million at the onset of trial. The plaintiff, a 44-year-old woman, claimed our internal medicine physician was negligent in failing to order a spinal tap after a six-day period of the plaintiff having a fever and severe headaches, in addition to an upper respiratory virus. (The same allegations were made as to the emergency medicine physician who saw her on day four and an internist who was called on the phone the evening of day seven.) The plaintiff alleged the severe headaches and fever were signs of a brain infection and that a spinal tap would have revealed the infection before brain damage occurred. She was diagnosed with Herpes Simplex Encephalopathy (HSE) eight days after the onset of the original symptoms. She was left with temporal lobe scarring and residual cognitive deficits. She claims she is unable to return to work as a global analyst on Wall Street. Our internal medicine expert asserted that our client complied with the standard of care. He also noted the doctor’s exam included a fundoscopic exam, which showed that the optic nerve was normal, meaning there was not brain swelling and no brain infection at the time. All of the defense experts asserted that HSE is a very rare disease and cannot be diagnosed until there are some neurological signs or symptoms. The damage experts for the plaintiff—neurologists and neuropsychologists—contended she was unemployable and would need supervision in the near future for her cognitive deficits. Defense experts asserted her brain injury was minimal and static, and she would not have any further neurologic decline. The jury returned a no cause as to all defendants after 4.5 hours of deliberation.