$17 Million Verdict for a Wall Township Girl Left Brain Injured After She Was Taken Off a Ventilator Too Soon
After trial: The hospital said it would appeal, and the New Jersey Supreme Court denied leave to appeal in September 2018. Nothing in the public record shows the award reduced, reversed, or retried.
Won by Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig.
A Monmouth County jury awarded $17 million in October 2017 to a Wall Township family whose seven-year-old daughter suffered permanent brain damage in 2008 after a pediatric pulmonologist removed her from a ventilator before she was weaned off sedation and no one confirmed she was breathing on her own. The case was tried by Paul A. Lauricella of McLaughlin & Lauricella, P.C., the firm whose lawyers joined Feldman Shepherd in 2024.
What happened
In November 2008, a seven-year-old girl from Wall Township was admitted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune with pneumonia. Surgeons removed a diseased portion of her lung. The operation itself went as planned. She then spent roughly ten days sedated and on a mechanical ventilator while she recovered.
The fight at trial was about what happened when the breathing tube came out. Dr. Charles K. Dadzie, a pediatric pulmonologist with Meridian Pediatric Associates, supervised her removal from the ventilator. The Heaney family alleged that he took her off mechanical support before she had been properly weaned off the sedation that had kept her still for a week and a half, and that no one watched closely enough to confirm she was initiating her own breaths. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped. It took three attempts with a defibrillator and about thirty-five minutes to bring her back.
The oxygen loss damaged her thalamus, the part of the brain that routes sensory information. The injury did not take away her ability to speak or move. What it took was processing speed, short-term memory, and the ability to hold a multi-step sequence in mind long enough to finish it, which is most of what learning a new skill requires. By the time the case reached a jury she was sixteen and needed a full-time aide with her through the school day.
Suit was filed in 2010. The trial ran six weeks in Superior Court, Monmouth County. In October 2017 the jury returned a verdict of $17 million, reported as roughly $10 million for the medical care she will need for the rest of her life, $5 million for pain and suffering, and $2 million for lost future earnings. The verdict ran against Dr. Dadzie, Meridian Pediatric Associates, and Jersey Shore University Medical Center.
The post-trial history is thinner than the trial record. The hospital said publicly that it intended to appeal. The New Jersey Supreme Court denied a motion for leave to appeal in Heaney v. Dadzie on September 24, 2018, under docket M-28 September Term 2018 (081569). No published appellate opinion in the case has been located, and the public record does not show the award being reduced, reversed, or retried. What happened after that, including any confidential resolution, is not on the public docket.
A note on the firm. This case was tried by Paul A. Lauricella and Slade H. McLaughlin of McLaughlin & Lauricella, P.C., a Philadelphia firm that handled catastrophic injury and medical negligence cases in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. McLaughlin died in 2022. The firm dissolved effective January 1, 2024, and its trial lawyers joined Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig LLP, where Lauricella practices today. Feldman Shepherd did not try this case under its current name. It is listed here because the lawyer who tried it is now one of its attorneys, and his firm biography still carries the result: $17 million for a child brain injured when prematurely withdrawn from a ventilator.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Patch (Wall, NJ): coverage of the October 2017 $17 million malpractice verdict
- 2.CourtListener: Heaney v. Dadzie, New Jersey Supreme Court order denying leave to appeal, September 24, 2018 (M-28 September Term 2018; 081569)
- 3.VerdictSearch (Law.com): Family claimed doctor removed girl too soon from ventilator
- 4.Medical Malpractice Help: report on the six-week Monmouth County trial and the breakdown of the $17 million award
- 5.Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig (firm)
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