Miss. S. Ct. Reverses $1.15 Million Jury Verdict in Lafayette County Medical Malpractice Trial
On Thursday the Miss. Supreme Court reversed and rendered a Lafayette County jury verdict of $1,150,000 in Berry v. Patten. Here is the Court's opinion.
It was a medical malpractice case involving a death from complications of gastric-bypass surgery. It appears that the target defendant was an anesthesiologist who obtained a defense verdict at trial. The verdict was against a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. Most of the Court's nineteen page opinion summarizes the expert testimony at trial. It's pretty dry reading.
Readers without much interest in anesthesiology can probably just skip to the first line of the Court's conclusion:
This lawsuit appears to have been aimed at Dr. Jones, the anesthesiologist, who obtained a defense verdict from the jury. In fact, the plaintiffs proposed a jury instruction that would have allowed the jury to hold Dr. Jones vicariously liable for Berry's negligence.
Reading the whole opinion, it does sound like the jury cleared the target defendant and returned a verdict against a non-target defendant.
Plaintiff lawyers should familiarize themselves with some of the "technical" defenses raised on the appeal that the Court did not get to.
Justice Dickinson wrote the Court's unanimous opinion.
Bill Walker of Oxford represented the plaintiff. Carl Hagwood and Mary Frances Stallings-England represented the defendant who lost at trial, but won on appeal.
Readers without much interest in anesthesiology
You can say that again. I cannot begin to guess why Judge Lackey gave that instruction (paras. 17-21). Why we have appellate courts, I guess.
The whole dynamic of suing a doctor AND a nurse is fascinating, and the jury's verdict may bear out that juries don't like to find vs. doctors but are more willing to hold a nurse liable. Or it may just prove that a poorly-instructed jury will find fault per the instructions.
i noticed those defenses that the court did not address. they appear to be targeted to the absence of the estate as a party plaintiff. the wrongful death law is mangled on the issue of whether or not an estate must be a plaintiff in the case even though the statute clearly says that no estate is necessary. caves v. yarborough creates the disarray. if the estate must be a party to claim then the 'one suit' theory becomes tenuous and the separation of the survival and wrongful death claims broadens. as the two distinct claims broaden, the cap issue becomes a bigger issue i.e. whether the decedent's non-economic damages and the wrongful death beneficiaries non-economic damages are combined under one cap. that's my opinion. wrongful death cases are becoming procedural traps.
Doctors win again at the Supreme Court. That is hardy news. They are basically immune in Mississippi. Have they lost one singe appeal in last ten years? Even this "fairer" Court bows to them at every turn. Hence, I wouldnt send my dog to a Mississippi doctor. Every quack in the country is heading there now as last resort
"Doctors win again at the Supreme Court."
Maybe I misread the opinion? The doctor won before the *jury*. The appeal seems to have concerned the *nurse*. There was no cros-appeal re: the doctor, was there?
Did I miss something? Or do you perhaps have your mind made up in advance on this topic?