The Joel Bieber Firm

A jury trial, abuse of a child and a case against a hospital for failure to report that abuse. Those facts rightfully equal a large verdict. The facts are egregious and even in the conservative state of North Carolina, a Cumberland County jury said that THIS should have never happened. ”This” is what happened and a father sued on behalf of his son.

The boy was six years old when his mother brought him to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in April 2003, with a broken wrist. His mother told hospital staff that her son had jumped off a porch and on to his wrist. The little boy reportedly tried to tell the doctors a different story.  The X-rays also showed some prior fractures; some that were still healing. After treating him at the ER, the doctors released the boy back to his mother and her boyfriend. They did not follow up on the issue of the prior fractures or listen to what the boy told them. In fact, no one performed a law required child-abuse screen.

Less than three months later, the boy was brought to the hospital with severe head trauma that resulted in quadriplegia. He was in the hospital for a week before a doctor, who wasn’t even one of his treating physicians; examined him and reported to the State Department of Social Services (DSS) that the boy had suffered 56 past and present injuries. Finally, an investigation which resulted in the arrest of the mother’s boyfriend, Johnny Kegler, for child abuse.  Unfortunately, the boy cannot walk, talk, or care for himself.

Once the father found out that the hospital, its parent company, and a radiology center, as well as several health care providers had ignored all the signs of abuse at the original visit for the broken wrist, he filed suit on behalf of his son, for medical malpractice because they ignored all the signs of abuse and sent his son home.

Initially, both the trial court and a state appellate court granted the defendants summary judgment,dismissing the father’s lawsuit; ruling that there was no proof of a  breach of the standard of care or that the hospital’s failure to report were the cause of the subsequent injuries. It shows how difficult it is to proceed with a successful malpractice claim.

The case was revived when the appellate court granted a rehearing and determined that additional evidence showed that the doctor who had initially reported the abuse, should have been enough, as expert testimony, for the case to proceed to a jury. The rehearing considered that this doctor had worked extensively with the DSS. He had testified that he knew that DSS would have taken immediate action after the first hospital visit, if someone had called them. (692 S.E.2d 119 (N.C. App. 2010).)

Now that the Appellate Court had sent it back to the trial court for trial, the evidence introduced to the jury showed that the hospital’s policy required staff to complete an abuse and neglect screen when any child presented with multiple prior injuries. Had the hospital staff filled out the form and reported suspicious facts surrounding the multiple injuries, DSS would have discovered that the boyfriend was using an alias and had an outstanding warrant against him for another crime. At the point the abuser would have been removed from the home.

The jury awarded the boy $20 million and his father $4.87 million.(relating to the claim for medical bills) The parties had reached a confidential high-low agreement during deliberations. The boy will now have the ability to get care. It’s care, though, that he should not have needed. In Virginia, because of malpractice lawsuit caps, the recovery would have been capped to a little over 2 million, which would not even begin to cover the medical expenses for the boy.

After that story, it’s hard to just post a pic o’ day. I thought that I would post a funny picture of “hiding turkey” but it also points us to to thinking of Thanksgiving and giving thanks.

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