Settlements in medical malpractice legal cases come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Through non-disclosure agreements, settlements often allow defendants to avoid being publicly mentioned, which may seem unfair to a plaintiff who doesn’t get an opportunity to see the defendant face accountability to the general public.
During mediation, some plaintiffs may feel pressured to accept compensation that is much lower than they initially anticipated. Bob Cheeley, co-founder of Cheeley Law Group in Georgia, encourages any potential malpractice or personal injury plaintiff who has suffered a life-changing injury to consider taking a case to trial, even if the first attorney they consult is skeptical of their chances in court.
One of Cheeley’s clients, who can only be identified for legal purposes as Samantha, found herself in a situation where her life was completely changed due to a single poor decision made by a medical assistant at a hospital. In 2013, a nagging MCL injury led her to an orthopedic surgeon to have surgery. Several weeks later, during a postoperative visit, Samantha mentioned a neck pain she had developed as a result of how her sleep posture changed during recovery. In response, a medical assistant administered an injection to Samantha’s neck that led to an injury that not only ended her professional career but permanently impacted her daily personal life.
“I developed numbness and tingling that went from the right up in my rapper trapezius down into my right arm, and I had no function on my right arm,” Samantha said. “I couldn’t do my job as a Pilates instructor.”
“It’s very important when a lawyer is selecting which cases to work on, that they believe their client had significant harm that occurred to them,” Cheeley said. “From the moment I first met Samantha, I knew that she would be the kind of person who would have a great appeal to a jury. I don’t take cases with the view that I’m just going to settle them after doing a little bit of work on them. I take every case, get it ready, and go try it. Samantha had a very significant injury. It made no sense to me why a doctor instructed someone in their office to give a needle to the neck and not do conservative treatment first.“
In medical malpractice cases, attorneys typically call upon two categories of experts: physicians who have treated the plaintiff and physicians who are hired as medical expert witnesses. Samantha’s primary physician and her neurologist agreed that the doctor who instructed an assistant to administer the needle to Samantha’s neck breached standard care. Once Cheeley heard their respective opinions, he arranged for them to testify.
“These chemicals that were in this injection harmed the dorsal scapular nerve, and the suprascapular nerve,” Cheeley said. “Fortunately, we had physicians who had treated Samantha.
“When someone has been treating you for over ten years, and they see you go from being completely healthy to disabled, it makes a huge impact,” Samantha said. “Since the injury in 2013, I’ve suffered from major depression and major anxiety, which I’ve never had before. I don’t have the confidence I used to have.”
Cheeley reminds plaintiffs that defendants who agree to a settlement in a malpractice case will typically want the plaintiff to sign a release that includes an agreement to not say anything disparaging about the company. Some agreements will prohibit any disparaging commentary online via social media and/or other forms of media, including but not limited to books, movie documentaries, etc.
During Samantha’s testimony, Cheeley directly asked her if she would trade all the money in the world to have her health back. She replied that she would take her health back, without hesitation, because money cannot replace your health.
“That resonated with a jury,” Cheeley said. “I think the jury was going to pound the hospital if it had been left up to the jury. I’ve talked to some of those jurors and they were talking some really big numbers. The defendant was definitely fearful of what the jury was about to do, and after talking to the jury, they made the right decision to settle the case.”
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