Marine Veteran Wins $2.97 Million Judgment Against the VA for Brain Injury After Spinal Surgery
After trial: The court cut the original $3,122,538.09 judgment to $2,972,658.09 on the government's motion for reconsideration on March 6, 2024. The United States appealed, then won dismissal of its own appeal on June 24, 2024, and the court approved a settlement on July 12, 2024 with its terms under seal.
Won by Brad Hendricks Law Firm and National Trial Law.
A retired Marine had spinal surgery at the Little Rock VA hospital in October 2018 and suffered a permanent brain injury after a surgeon left a drain near a dural tear without confirming the repair was sealed. After a bench trial under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Judge Lee P. Rudofsky entered a $3,122,538.09 judgment for Craig and Eileen Dobbs. On reconsideration it was amended to $2,972,658.09, which is what the court's final judgment stood at.
What happened
On October 9, 2018, Craig Dobbs, a 61-year-old retired Marine from Cotter, Arkansas, went to the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock for a scheduled lumbar decompression and fusion. During the operation, neurosurgeon Dr. Diaa Bahgat tore the dura, the membrane that holds spinal fluid around the spinal cord. A dural tear is a known risk of the procedure, and Mr. Dobbs's lawyers did not claim that causing or repairing it was negligent. Their case was about what came next.
Dr. Bahgat finished the surgery and left a drain near the repair site. After a four-day bench trial in November and December 2022, U.S. District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky found that placing a drain there without first confirming that the repair was watertight fell below the Arkansas standard of care. Spinal fluid kept leaking, and Mr. Dobbs suffered a brain hemorrhage. A second surgery followed on October 15. He was flown to Houston Methodist Hospital, where he spent about a month and was treated in a coma and on a ventilator before moving to inpatient rehabilitation. He went home in December 2018.
The court found a permanent brain injury. Mr. Dobbs needs help with daily life and cannot be left alone for long, and his wife, Eileen, took on his care herself. Laurie Higginbotham of National Trial Law in Austin, Texas, told Arkansas Business that the injury had 'completely upended their lives.' The case was tried under the Federal Tort Claims Act with Arkansas law supplying the rules, so the judge, not a jury, decided liability and damages. The court's docket lists Higginbotham, Tom Jacob and Steven Haspel of Jacob, PLLC, with George R. Wise Jr. of the Brad Hendricks Law Firm in Little Rock, for the Dobbses.
The December 5, 2023 judgment awarded Mr. Dobbs $2,491,858.09 and Mrs. Dobbs $630,680, for $3,122,538.09 in all. Mr. Dobbs's award covered $74,013.53 in past medical bills, future medical and attendant care, and $1 million for past and future pain and suffering. The court rejected a claim for round-the-clock attendant care beyond what the care plan supported. For Mrs. Dobbs, it awarded $500,000 for loss of consortium and $130,680 for the roughly four hours a day she had spent caring for her husband over four years.
The government asked the court to reconsider. On March 6, 2024, Judge Rudofsky agreed on two points: the past caretaking sum belonged to Mr. Dobbs rather than his wife, and the future care figure should be recalculated using a more specific present-value method. The amended judgment was $2,472,658.09 for Mr. Dobbs and $500,000 for Mrs. Dobbs, $2,972,658.09 in total, with post-judgment interest of 5.16 percent. The court also taxed $22,620.81 in costs against the United States.
The United States appealed to the Eighth Circuit on May 2, 2024, then moved to dismiss its own appeal, which the court granted on June 24. On July 12, 2024, Judge Rudofsky approved a settlement between the parties, with its terms filed under seal, and the plaintiffs dismissed the case on August 16.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Arkansas Business, 'Ex-Marine Gets $2.5M in Malpractice Case', Jan. 8, 2024·Archived copy
- 2.Dobbs v. United States, No. 4:20-cv-01192 (E.D. Ark.), docket (CourtListener)
- 3.Dobbs v. United States, No. 4:20-cv-01192-LPR (E.D. Ark. Dec. 5, 2023), Memorandum of Decision and judgments (GovInfo)·Archived copy
- 4.KTLO, 'Cotter man and his wife awarded judgement in medical malpractice lawsuit against the VA', Dec. 18, 2023·Archived copy
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