$18 Million Verdict for Woman Left Paraplegic After Missed Spinal Infection Diagnosis
Won by Harris Lowry Manton LLP.
A Chatham County jury awarded $18 million, the largest personal injury verdict in county history, after an infectious disease specialist failed to diagnose and treat a spinal epidural abscess, leaving Joan Simmons permanently paraplegic.
What happened
On July 20, 2014, Joan Simmons, a 58-year-old certified public accountant from Okatie, South Carolina, went to a Savannah hospital complaining of acute back pain and showing signs of infection. She was discharged. Eight days later, she returned with altered mental status. Blood tests confirmed a bloodstream infection, and an infectious disease specialist at SouthCoast Medical Group, Dr. Sarah Barbour, was brought in to manage her care.
Dr. Barbour did not identify or treat the spinal epidural abscess that was developing along Simmons's spine. Over the following days, Simmons developed progressive weakness in her legs. By the time imaging confirmed the abscess, surgery was performed, but too late. The pressure on her spinal cord had already caused permanent paralysis in both legs. Simmons would spend the rest of her life as a paraplegic, unable to work and requiring continuous daily care.
Harris Lowry Manton attorneys Jeffrey Harris and Stephen Lowry took the case to trial in Chatham County State Court. The seven-day trial centered on whether Dr. Barbour and SouthCoast Medical Group met the standard of care owed to a hospitalized patient presenting with infection and back pain. The firm argued that a timely diagnosis and treatment of the abscess, a recognized complication of bloodstream infections, would have prevented Simmons's paralysis.
The jury returned a verdict of $18 million. It apportioned 90 percent of the fault to SouthCoast Medical Group and Dr. Barbour, putting the defendants' share at $16.2 million. The remaining 10 percent was attributed to the hospital. The award covered future medical expenses, the cost of modifying her home for wheelchair accessibility, and lost income.
The verdict was the largest medical malpractice award and the largest personal injury verdict ever returned in Chatham County at that time. It was later recognized by Georgia's Daily Report as the second-highest medical malpractice verdict in the state for 2018.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Harris Lowry Manton LLP
All Harris Lowry Manton LLP proven verdicts →A Fulton County jury awarded $47.7 million after a defective rear seat latch in a 2000 Lincoln LS collapsed during a crash, severing a six-year-old girl's thoracic spinal cord and leaving her paralyzed.
A Floyd County jury awarded $43.5 million to the family of Morris Ellison, an 80-year-old man who suffered malnourishment, severe dehydration, and an untreated broken hip before dying at a Rome, Georgia nursing home whose operator had diverted Medicare and Medicaid funds from patient care.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $40 million to Jessica Mundy and her husband after her 2004 Ford Explorer spontaneously shifted from park into reverse, striking and running over her, after the trial team showed Ford had known about the 'false park' transmission defect for decades.
A Fulton County jury awarded $35 million to the family of Joshua Chang, a 21-year-old Yale student killed when his car struck a concrete planter on the shoulder of Batesville Road, finding the City of Milton 93% responsible for leaving a dangerous obstacle in the right-of-way.
Related medical malpractice verdicts
A Utah judge entered a $951 million default judgment against Steward Health Care after newly trained nurses, an excessive Pitocin drip, and a delayed C-section at Jordan Valley Medical Center left a newborn permanently brain damaged.
A Gainesville jury awarded $900 million, including $700 million in punitive damages, to stroke survivor Joseph Webb over neglect at the University Place Care and Rehabilitation Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case tried against defaulted Trans Healthcare entities with no defense present, but Florida's First District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment in 2013 because the trial court had refused to let a defense lawyer appear, and the money was never collected; the estate's claim was later resolved for a small share of a multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.
A Clark County jury ordered Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay $524 million after finding the UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries negligently credentialed a gastroenterologist whose unsafe injection practices at his Las Vegas endoscopy clinics caused the largest medically caused hepatitis C outbreak in American history.
Georgia Hayes, a Kansas City area ovarian cancer patient, sued pharmacist Robert Courtney after learning he had diluted the chemotherapy drugs used in her treatment. A Jackson County jury found Courtney liable and awarded Hayes $225,571,439 in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, the first of hundreds of similar suits against Courtney to reach trial. The trial judge later found the award excessive and cut it by remittitur to $330,071,439, and that reduced judgment stood. Hayes herself and the case reporter covering the verdict both said she was unlikely to ever collect a significant portion of it.