A Medical Malpractice Verdict

Dear  NONE,

A Jefferson County jury last week returned a verdict in the amount of $250,000 after hearing a week's worth of testimony concerning the death of Lilli Bell Williams.  According to  Nat Bryan , who tried the case, Mrs. Williams was a Type II diabetic who was seen at Bessemer Carraway Medical Center's emergency room and diagnosed with hypoglycemia and urinary tract infection.  Nat says the case focused on the emergency room physician's failure to admit Mrs. Williams to the hospital at that point. The next morning, Mrs. Williams was found in a hypoglycemic coma.  After being rushed to the hospital, she was diagnosed with severe prolonged hypoglycemia, encephalopathy and probable sepsis.  Nat says he was gratified on behalf of Mrs. Williams' family.

This is especially true since getting a plaintiff's verdict in a medical death case is so tough.  Looking at the figures for the last couple of years, medical malpractice cases in volving a death are rarely won by the plaintiff in Alabama.  According to The Alabama Trial Court Review, only 13.2% of the medical death cases resulted in a plaintiff's verdict in 2002 and 2003.  If that's the case, Nat was able to beat the odds last week.

Mike Beard is spending the new year focused on a personal injury case growing out of a bridge-building project over the White River in East Arkansas.  Mike represents a very active young man who was working on the project when a rigging device snapped and knocked the young man off a beam into the bottom of a coffer dam.  The client is paralyzed as a result of the fall.  The whole firm has been heartened by the way in which our client has handled these devastating injuries.  The young man continues to be active outdoors, including hunting from a 4-wheel ATV.