Failure to Warn of Head Injury Risk Leads to Ohio Jury Verdict
After trial: The $500,000 setoff for the family's settlement with Mercy Hospital Clermont and the $2,412,899 jury verdict against Dr. Huber and Qualified Emergency Specialists were affirmed on appeal and were never reduced further. The prejudgment interest component was not final as of the Ohio Supreme Court's September 2013 decision: the trial court had originally awarded $830,774.66 in interest, but the Supreme Court held that a 2004 amendment to Ohio's prejudgment-interest statute, which bars interest on future damages and ties the accrual date to a notice requirement, governed because the case was refiled in 2008. It reversed the court of appeals on that point and remanded to the Clermont County Court of Common Pleas to recalculate the interest under that statute. The negligence finding, the $2,412,899 verdict and the $500,000 setoff were not before the Supreme Court and were unaffected. No later source confirms the recalculated interest figure or whether the judgment was paid.
Won by Lawrence, Beirne & Lewis.
A Clermont County, Ohio jury found that an emergency room doctor was negligent for failing to instruct the parents of a nine-year-old boy on how to watch for a serious head injury after a fall, a lapse that let an epidural hematoma go undetected overnight and required emergency brain surgery. The jury awarded $2,412,899 in 2010, which the trial court reduced by a $500,000 credit for the family's earlier settlement with the hospital, leaving the doctor and his practice group liable for $1,912,899 plus prejudgment interest. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict in 2012, and the Ohio Supreme Court resolved a separate dispute over how the interest should be calculated in 2013, sending that narrow issue back to the trial court. The underlying negligence finding and damages figure were never disturbed.
What happened
On March 22, 2002, a nine-year-old boy fell while playing at a family friend's home in Hamersville, Ohio, striking the left side of his head on a coffee table hard enough that his father could hear the table's glass rattle from another room. The boy began vomiting and complaining of jaw pain, so his parents, Kristi Longbottom and Jesse Smith, took him to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital Clermont.
Dr. Gary Huber examined the boy, found a normal neurological exam, stitched a cut on his ear, and discharged him without ordering a CT scan. An emergency room nurse had given the parents a standard pamphlet on watching for head injury symptoms, but the parents later testified that Huber told them the injury was 'not typical' and that they should just let their son 'sleep it off.' A recording of the 911 call played at trial captured Jesse Smith telling the dispatcher that when he and Longbottom asked Huber if they should wake their son every two hours through the night, Huber told them 'no, it won't be a problem.'
The boy vomited again and had the dry heaves once home. Around 5 a.m., his mother woke to find him gasping for air. An air ambulance rushed him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where a CT scan showed a massive epidural hematoma causing his brain to shift and herniate. A surgeon, Dr. Kerry Crone, operated immediately and was not certain the boy would survive. He did, after several days in intensive care and weeks relearning to swallow, eat, communicate and walk. He was left with permanent brain injury and an altered gait.
The family sued Huber, his employer Qualified Emergency Specialists, and Mercy Hospital in 2003, then voluntarily dismissed and refiled the case in 2008. They settled with the hospital for $500,000 before trial. The claims against Huber and QESI went to a Clermont County jury for nine days in 2010. Rather than accepting the family's argument that Huber should have ordered a CT scan, the jury found him negligent on a different theory: that he failed to instruct the parents about the possibility of a serious head injury or how to monitor their son for one. It awarded $2,412,899, including $1,616,899 for the boy's future medical care, pain and suffering, and lost earning capacity.
The trial court credited the $500,000 hospital settlement against that verdict, leaving Huber and QESI responsible for $1,912,899, and separately ordered $830,774.66 in prejudgment interest after finding Huber had not made a good faith effort to settle. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict and the setoff in 2012, rejecting Huber's argument that there was no evidence tying his conduct to the boy's injuries, and it sided with the family on a cross-appeal to include additional interest for the year their case had been dismissed and refiled.
The Ohio Supreme Court then took up a conflict between appellate districts over which version of the state's prejudgment interest law applied. In 2013, it held that because the family's suit was refiled in 2008, after a 2004 rewrite of the statute took effect, the newer law governed, one that bars interest on the future-damages portion of a verdict. The court reversed the interest ruling and sent the case back to Clermont County to recalculate the interest under that statute. The jury's finding of negligence and the $2,412,899 damages figure were never disturbed.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Twelfth District Court of Appeals of Ohio, Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont, 2012-Ohio-2148 (May 14, 2012): case facts, the nine-day 2010 jury trial, the $2,412,899 verdict and its basis, the $500,000 settlement setoff, the trial court's prejudgment interest award, and counsel of record (The Lawrence Firm, P.S.C., Richard D. Lawrence and Jennifer L. Lawrence, for appellees)
- 2.Supreme Court of Ohio, Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont, 137 Ohio St.3d 103, 2013-Ohio-4068 (Sept. 24, 2013): confirms the injury, the verdict amount and its future-damages component, the $500,000 setoff, the original $830,774.66 prejudgment interest award, the holding that the amended interest statute applied because the case was refiled in 2008, the remand for recalculation, and counsel of record (The Lawrence Firm, P.S.C., Jennifer L. Lawrence and Richard D. Lawrence, for appellees)
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