Serious Injury Trial Lawyers, Auto Accident Attorneys, Premises Liability Lawyers, Food Poisoning Attorneys, Medical Malpractice Lawyers, Elder Abuse Attorneys and Product Liability Lawyers in Most States, from Alaska to Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Serious injury attorneys are lawyers who are experienced in handling complex cases with serious injuries, and every serious injury case is complex. Lawyers tend to think of their jobs as adducing the evidence of liability and damages. Liability, simply speaking is negligence and causation, although there can be lawsuits based on other causes of action than negligence, such as breach of warranty, strict liability or fraud, as examples. Causation simply means that the negligent or wrongful conduct of the defendant was a substantial factor in causing the client's injury. The negligence of the defendant may be simple or complex as in an auto accident or medical malpractice case; and the causation may be obvious or require a very sophisticated presentation of expert testimony, as in pharmaceutical product liability litigation. But every serious injury case is complex, even in the simplest of liability cases, because it requires that the attorney understand the full panoply of damages to which the client is entitled, and have a sound strategy for maximizing the clients opportunities to recover the full measure of his damages.
The damage aspect of the client's case will vary from case to case, however, in serious injury lawsuits it is commonly broken down into "general damages" and "special damages." General damages are what many personal injury lawyers would describe as "pain and suffering," although for many seriously injured clients, such as a paraplegic, for example, the greatest aspect of general damages may not be pain and suffering, but rather, "loss of enjoyment of life damages." Below we will discuss loss of enjoyment of life damages and our strategies for maximizing the opportunities to succeed in persuading a settlement judge or jury of their validity and serious impact upon the client's post-injury experience of life.
Special economic damages generally refer to the client's past and future medical expenses and past and future earnings losses. Demonstrating these losses, and in particular the future special economic damages is very complex, requiring the serious injury attorney to engage teams of highly qualified experts in every such case. Again, we will explain in detail below our strategies for maximizing the clients opportunities to obtain full compensation for his past and future medical expenses and earnings losses, and indeed these are complex strategies.
One thing that the prospective client may take from this discussion is a greater appreciation for the advisability of selecting an attorney both well qualified in the subject matter of the case and well qualified and experienced in presenting serious injury litigation. Indeed, in selecting the lawyer to represent you, you may want to consider the attorneys credentials as a serious injury attorney, his experience in trying serious injury lawsuits, and you may wish to discuss your injuries and disabilities, and the way your life has been affected by your injuries, and inquire how the attorney would expect to maximize the potential that you will be fully compensated for all that you have and will suffer, both economically and in terms of your post-injury life experience. Every prospective client has the right to ask every lawyer he will consider to represent him about his qualifications, including as a serious injury attorney, and you should do so.
Our Law Group attorneys welcome you to contact us for a free consultation. You may submit the Contact form and one of our lawyers in your state will call you to discuss your case, provide his initial case evaluation and preliminary recommendations. In addition your are encouraged to ask about his credentials including his experience in trying serious injury lawsuits. Our serious injury lawyers are available to serve you in most states, from California to New York, Texas, Alabama and Georgia to Alaska, in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado and Connecticut, Delaware to Idaho and Illinois, Indiana, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana, to Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri, in Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, in New Mexico, and Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, from South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin to West Virginia and Wyoming.
Our serious injury attorneys practice in the areas identified in the "Practice Areas" listed in the upper left column of this page. Our accident lawyers will consider auto, motorcycle, bicycle and big rig truck accident lawsuits. Our product liability lawyers will consider cases involving serious injuries sustained as the result of any product defect, from infant toys with detachable parts that can be lodged in the child's windpipe resulting in anoxia and brain injury, to industrial machinery without proper safety equipment leading to limb amputations, through the most complex pharmaceutical product liability litigation, including teratogenic drugs, from Thalidomide to Depakote. Our food poisoning lawyers will consider cases of serious illness resulting in permanent injury such as E. coli HUS or TTP cases. And our elder abuse lawyers will consider cases involving physical abuse, elder neglect and abandonment and psychological abuse. We are here to serve you.
Below our serious injury lawyers will describe our strategies for maximizing the opportunities for our clients to recover the full measure of their general damages, and their special economic damages, their past and future medical expenses and past and future earnings losses.
Our Serious Injury Lawyers Explain that the Client's Rights to Recover General Damages Are Not Limited to "Pain and Suffering" but Also Include the Right to Recover for Loss of Enjoyment of Life Damages. Our Lawyers Also Explain our Strategy for Recovery of Loss of Enjoyment of Life Damages.
As noted above, many personal injury lawyers describe "general damages" as "pain and suffering," and in many cases that is accurate enough, where the client suffers pain but then recovers fully and has no permanent injury or resulting alteration in his post-accident quality of life. Every case is different, however, for the seriously injured, very commonly the greatest aspect of general damages as it is perceived by the client is his or her "loss of enjoyment of life." And to persuade a settlement judge or jury of both the validity and seriousness of the loss of enjoyment of life damages usually requires substantial preparation and expert testimony. Expert testimony will be required sometimes from the treating physicians or expert medical doctors engaged by the serious injury attorney. The medical experts will describe the nature and extent of the injury and provide the objective medical evidence of the client's post-accident physical limitations and may testify also about what the client cannot do now what he was able to do before the accident. However, the lawyers art in preparing to present the general damages case of the seriously injured client begins first with speaking extensively with the client to learn in depth how his injuries have affected his life. Very often many of the activities that the client enjoyed most in his life before the accident he can no longer participate in. These may be activities as varied as skiing or bouncing the grandchildren on your knees. So what the lawyer will do is interview the family and friends of the client, and review photographs and family videos if available showing the client enjoying the activities. Taking the example used above of the paraplegic client, what the serious injury lawyer can do is then arrange for a professionally produced "Day in the Life" film to depict the client's courage in meeting all of the challenges he faces in his post accident life. The anticipated testimony, photographs and home movies of the activities the client enjoyed before his injuries can then be juxtaposed against the Day in the Life film for the settlement judge, and if the case cannot be settled, then presented to the jury. Different approaches will be adopted in different cases, however, it is our experience as serious injury lawyers that presenting the client as courageous in the face of adversity is most commonly the strategy most likely to draw judge and juror sympathy, and generally speaking the superior opportunity to obtain the client's full measure of general damages.
Our Serious Injury Lawyers will Explain Our Strategies for Maximizing the Opportunities to Obtain the Full Measure of the Client's Past and Future Medical Expenses.
As noted above, special economic damages includes both past and future medical expenses and past and future earnings losses. Here our serious injury lawyers will discuss the preparation and presentation of the client's past and future medical expenses.
Past medical expenses are almost always easy to calculate, merely by gathering and summing all of the past medical bills through the date of the settlement conference or first day of trial. However, the preparation and presentation of future medical expenses can be very complex, and requires the serious injury attorney to engage a team of experts. The preparation begins with the medical experts, treating physicians and expert medical specialists first to describe the full nature and extent of the client's injuries and then provide a rough outline of the types of medical expense that the client will incur each year over the course of his or her remaining life expectancy. The serious injury lawyer will then retain a "life care planner" who is an expert with ample experience in gathering, itemizing and presenting the yearly medical expenses. The life care planner will commonly have numerous conversations with the treating and expert physicians to assure that all manner of medical expense that the client will likely incur over his lifetime is included, from future hospitalizations and surgeries, full time or part time nursing services, convalescent care services when such services will be required, through replacement wheelchairs or prostheses, converted vehicles, through to the small item medical sundries that the client will be required to purchase in connection with his or her daily care. The life care planner will also research the present day costs of each of these items of medical care, equipment and sundries, and from that information, he will prepare a "life care plan." The serious injury lawyer will then present the plan to a forensic economist who will in turn increase the amounts calculated for each year to account for the fast growing rate of medical cost inflation, and then he will discount the total to present value.
The reports of the physicians, life care planner and economist can be presented to the judge at settlement conferences to urge that the client be fairly compensated for his past and future medical expenses, and then, if the case can't be settled, the medical experts, life care planner and economist will be prepared to testify at the trial.
Our Serious Injury Lawyers Explain Our Strategies for Maximizing the Client's Opportunities to Obtain the Full Value of his Past and Future Earnings Losses.
Even past earnings losses can be complex to prepare and present in cases involving clients who are self employed or employees who would have had opportunities for advancement or periodic or conditional salary increases. However, for our purposes here we will take the "simplest" of loss of earnings presentations, that being the worker who receives a set hourly or monthly salary with no opportunity for advancement or salary increase or cost of living increase. And even then, the preparation and presentation of the client's future earnings losses are complex.
Past economic losses in the simplest of case of the hourly or monthly salaried worker are most commonly easy enough to calculate by simply multiplying the months the worker has not been able to work from the date of the injury to the date of the settlement conference or first day of trial. Economic losses are the net losses, so if the client was able to obtain other employment the calculation would also involve the subtraction of the amount earned by the worker over the same time period.
The serious injury lawyer's task in preparing and presenting the client's future earnings losses, however, are always complex and again require that the lawyer engage a team of experts. First the attorney will consult with the client's treating physicians and medical experts to define every aspect of the client's disabilities. The medical experts will also be called upon to define what the client's "work life expectancy was pre-accident and post-accident as the client's injuries may have resulted in a decrease in the number of years that he will likely be capable of working. The lawyer will then engage a "rehabilitation expert," whose responsibilities will be to meet with the client and gain a good understanding of the client's pre-accident employment strengths and post-accident disabilities, he will commonly speak with the medical experts, obtain the client's school records, employment records, and other pertinent documentary evidence. The rehabilitation expert will then identify the breadth of employment that the client had available to him before the injuries and the lesser opportunities for employment the client has and will have in his post accident work life. From this information the rehabilitation expert will prepare a report setting forth the net income losses the client will suffer year to year over the full course of his full pre-injury work life expectancy. Again, the serious injury lawyer will present the rehabilitation expert's report to a forensic economist who will increase the yearly amounts by use of government wage growth statistics, and then will discount the total to present cash value.
Our Serious Injury Attorneys provide free Consultations. If You Have Been Seriously Injured in an Accident or Due to Medical Malpractice, or Suffered Serious Injury Due to A Drug Defect, or Elder Abuse or a Product Defect, Premises Liability or Illness Due to Food Poisoning, Our Serious Injury Lawyers Welcome You to Contact Us. Our Serious Injury Attorneys Are Available to Serve You in Most States, From New York to California, from Texas, Georgia and Florida to Illinois and Michigan, from Alaska to Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho and Indiana Property Defect Attorneys from Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Maryland, to Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, and Trip and Fall Lawyers, North Carolina from North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey to New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Our Serious injury lawyers welcome you to contact us for a Free Consultation. You may submit the Contact form and one of our attorneys both experienced in the subject matter of your case and experienced also in trying serious injury lawsuits will contact you to discuss your case, provide his initial case evaluation and preliminary recommendations. For our list of legal subject matters that form our practice, please consult our "Practice Areas" menu. We are serious injury auto, motorcycle, bicycle and car accident lawyers, "slip and fall" or premises liability attorneys who welcome cases involving residential, commercial and public property defects and failures to maintain property. We are medical malpractice lawyers for the breadth of lawsuits against doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, from failures to diagnose to obstetrical malpractice and birth injury cases. Our pharmaceutical product liability attorneys focus on serious injuries due to drug defects and side effects, including birth defects. Our elder abuse attorneys represent our seniors against retirement homes, convalescent centers and nursing homes for physical abuse, elder neglect and abandonment and psychological abuse. The serious injuries that our lawyers will consider may include spinal cord injuries such as quadriplegia and paraplegia, and other back injuries, serious internal injury, catastrophic orthopedic injuries, limb amputations, arm or leg, permanent health consequences resulting from failure to diagnose a disease or failure to properly treat a disease, birth injuries due to obstetrical malpractice, birth defects due to maternal use of teratogenic drugs, permanent injury due illness resulting from food poisoning, and every other manner of serious injury. Our serious injury lawyers will consider representing prospective clients in most states from Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and Idaho from Illinois to Indiana, and Elder Abuse Attorneys in Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana, to Massachusetts, Maryland, and Maine, Lawyers Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, from South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin to West Virginia and Wyoming.
You may contact our serious injury attorneys simply by filling out a Contact form on this site. One of our lawyers will call you to discuss you case. If your case falls within our practice areas we will provide an initial case evaluation and provide you with our preliminary recommendations. You have the right to ask any lawyer who you would consider to represent you about his or her qualifications generally, including his or her experience in the subject matter of your case and experience in trying serious injury lawsuits, as well as any other qualification that you consider important in the attorney you chose to represent you - and you are invited to ask the lawyer from our Law Group who contacts you. We are here to serve you.
*Jury Verdicts and Settlements:
$2.5 million dollar settlement in a contested liability motorcycle accident case in which the motorcyclist suffered a below the knee amputation. The motorcyclist pulled out from between two left turn lanes, splitting lanes, presenting a difficult liability case. The driver of the car that hit him also had a minimum $15,000/$30,000 auto liability insurance policy raising the "collectability" problem. Law Group attorney Henke was able to overcome the liability contest, to the satisfaction of the settlement judge, as the result of his deposition interrogation of the investigating law enforcement officer who ultimately agreed that the motorcyclist's having split lanes between the two left turning cars was not a competent cause of the accident. And the Law Group serious injury auto accident lawyer was also able to overcome the "collectability" problem after discovering through his investigation that the other motorist was carrying tools in his car trunk essential to his work, permitting the Law Group auto accident lawyer to sue also the motorist's employer, given this evidence that at the time of the accident the motorist was operating his vehicle "in the course and scope of his employment."
$2.7 million dollar jury verdict. Medical malpractice, drug product and medical fraud case. Medical malpractice and drug product liability attorney Henke represented 5 plaintiffs in a consolidated four month trial in which the jury found the defendants liable on multiple causes of action, from medical and hospital negligence to fraud and conspiracy to defraud the plaintiffs with dangerous and ineffective FDA approved and unapproved drugs. The Law Group lawyer designated highly distinguished scientists, epidemiologists and AIDS physicians to testify for the plaintiffs in the case, including Luc Montagnier, the head of France's National AIDS Laboratories who discovered HIV; Michael Gotlieb, co-founder of AMFAR, the astute physician who discovered AIDS, Don Francis, head CDC AIDS Task force who first discovered the causes of AIDS, Roger Detels, the senior investigator on largest epidemiological study on AIDS drugs and their efficacy, John Curnutte, senior investigator on the largest AIDS vaccine study, Peter Wolfe, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. He conceived the "test" litigation to rectify the epidemic of AIDS drug fraud that followed upon the AIDS epidemic by suing also hospitals with the strategy that if punitive damages could be obtained against the hospitals that tolerated AIDS physicians who used on their patients ineffective AIDS drugs that hospitals across the nation would recognize the danger of failing to revoke the staff privileges of physicians who practiced AIDS drug fraud. In addition to awarding compensatory damages, the jury found the defendant hospital liable both for negligence and conspiracy to defraud, and awarded 1.6 million dollars in punitive damages against the hospital. The case was chronicled in most of the most legitimate newspapers in the United States, from the front page of the New York Times to the front page of the Los Angeles Times, from the Washington Post to the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, in legal journals, including the National Law Journal, and on national television, including Tom Brokaw's NBC Evening News and CNN . Pharmaceutical product liability attorney, Henke, also testified before Congress with regard to these cases and the need to rein in AIDS drug fruad, at the invitation of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives.
$3.8 million dollar gross jury verdict in medical malpractice case involving failure to diagnose atrial myxoma, the most rare tumor in the human body. The plaintiff had presented initially to the defendant internist with a history of two episodes of feinting. The internist did a battery of tests including an electrocardiogram. When the tests failed to identify a medical cause for the feinting episodes the internist referred the patient to a neurologist who in turn did a battery of tests, also failing to identify a medical cause for the feinting episodes. The internist then diagnosed "vaso vagal syncope" a medical term suggesting a psychological cause for the feinting and referred the patient to a psychologist. The patient then had a stroke and the atrial myxoma was diagnosed during her hospitalization. The medical experts engaged by our Group medical malpractice attorney, Henke, offered to testify that while it was not required by the standard of care that the physicians consider atrial myxoma in their differential diagnoses, if they had considered other more common cardiologic disease and had they done an echocardiogram to rule them out, they would have seen the atrial myxoma. In the opening statements the defense attorneys made the argument that the plaintiffs were attempting to assign liability for failure to diagnose the rarest of tumors, one that most cardiologists would never have heard of, one that, in the very few case reports in the medical literature was in each case an autopsy diagnosis, atrial myxoma never having previously been diagnosed in a live patient. The Group medical malpractice attorney called as his first witness the defendant internist and led with his chin asking "Doctor, did you consider atrial myxoma in your differential diagnosis." The internist responded as he was assuredly coached to do by his attorneys, "Mr. Henke, you don't think of zebras when you hear hoof beats, which is actually a medical syllogism expressing the proposition that the physician should list the most common possible disease entities that can cause the patient's symptoms, not the rarest. But a light bulb went off in the brain of our Group medical malpractice lawyer and he first said softly "Mitral valve prolapse," and then more loudly, "It's a horse isn't it." His lawyer objected, but the doctor had "opened the door" and the Judge ordered the physician to answer the question. He dodged, saying, "I don't know what you mean." But our Group medical malpractice attorney was prepared, "Well, doctor, mitral valve prolapse occurs in about 6 percent of a randomly selected population of females Mrs. Z's age, its a horse, isn't it. The doctor replied, "Okay, its a horse." The medical malpractice lawyer continued, again first softly, "Mitral stenosis," and then more loudly, "Its a horse, isn't it doctor." The doctor said "Okay, its a horse." The medical malpractice lawyer continued, again first softly, "Idiopathic subaortic stenosis," and then more loudly "It's a horse, isn't it doctor." The doctor reluctantly admitted it again. And then the punch line, "So doctor, upon hearing the hoof beats, Mrs. Z's symptoms of feinting, had you merely thought horse, these other common potential cardiologic diagnoses, and turned in the direction of the hoof beats, performed and echocardiogram, you would have seen the zebra, wouldn't you have doctor. The medical malpractice attorney's use of the syllogism offered by the defendant internist was indeed faithful to the testimony that he would then elicit from his experts. The medical malpractice lawyer then came back to the zebra syllogism in closing argument to make more understandable than he might have otherwise the logical progression of his expert's premises upon which the jury then held both the internist and neurologist liable.
$1.5 million dollar settlement in a pharmaceutical product liability birth injury case. The case involved an experimental drug which the manufacturer sought to test for its efficacy as a sedative, employing over 1000 physicians nationwide. One of our Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyers, Henke, obtained from another, Pennsylvania Law Group drug product lawyer the list of the physicians who served as investigators for the drug company when 3 of his clients in the same small city contacted him with similar limb defects characteristic of the teratogenic drug, all of whose mothers were treated during pregnancy by the same obstetrician. It was confirmed that the mothers' common obstetrician was on the list of investigators who received the drug from the pharmaceutical company. The three cases, including the one above referenced case were filed against the drug manufacturer and the physician. The physician no longer had the patients' medical records. The clients mothers recalled receiving a sedative during pregnancy but did not recall the name of the drug. However, the Group pharmaceutical product liability attorney developed expert testimony that the limb defects were characteristic of limb defects caused by the suspect drug which combined with the evidence that the common obstetrician had access to the teratogenic sedative was deemed sufficient for the manufacturer and physician to resolve the above referenced case and the two others out of court for substantial settlements. The settlements were achieved despite that the mothers exposure to the drug and the births of the clients occurred more than 30 years prior to the case being filed, leading the manufacturer and physician to file demurrers and motions for summary judgment asserting the statute of limitations defense. The Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyer, Henke, responded to the motions with the contention that the manufacturer had sought to obscure that it had supplied the notorious drug to physicians in the United States, and that the physician intentionally concealed from the mothers that the drug might have been the cause of their babies birth defects. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the motions, and the settlements were achieved shortly thereafter..
Amount of settlement sealed by the Court. Law Group food poisoning lawyer, Nick Allis, settled a Food poisoning E. coli case resulting in Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, HUS on the eve of trial. The case resulted in one of the largest E.coli settlements or verdicts ever reported in the United States.
Most recently our Law Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyers have settled many Vioxx cases in the context of the Vioxx Class Action. In many of our cases we filed appeals of settlement awards granted by the settlement administrators, gaining superior settlement awards upon the appeals.
*The results obtained in the cases listed were dependent upon the facts of the cases, and the results will differ in other cases based on different facts
$2.5 million dollar settlement in a contested liability motorcycle accident case in which the motorcyclist suffered a below the knee amputation. The motorcyclist pulled out from between two left turn lanes, splitting lanes, presenting a difficult liability case. The driver of the car that hit him also had a minimum $15,000/$30,000 auto liability insurance policy raising the "collectability" problem. Law Group attorney Henke was able to overcome the liability contest, to the satisfaction of the settlement judge, as the result of his deposition interrogation of the investigating law enforcement officer who ultimately agreed that the motorcyclist's having split lanes between the two left turning cars was not a competent cause of the accident. And the Law Group serious injury auto accident lawyer was also able to overcome the "collectability" problem after discovering through his investigation that the other motorist was carrying tools in his car trunk essential to his work, permitting the Law Group auto accident lawyer to sue also the motorist's employer, given this evidence that at the time of the accident the motorist was operating his vehicle "in the course and scope of his employment."
$2.7 million dollar jury verdict. Medical malpractice, drug product and medical fraud case. Medical malpractice and drug product liability attorney Henke represented 5 plaintiffs in a consolidated four month trial in which the jury found the defendants liable on multiple causes of action, from medical and hospital negligence to fraud and conspiracy to defraud the plaintiffs with dangerous and ineffective FDA approved and unapproved drugs. The Law Group lawyer designated highly distinguished scientists, epidemiologists and AIDS physicians to testify for the plaintiffs in the case, including Luc Montagnier, the head of France's National AIDS Laboratories who discovered HIV; Michael Gotlieb, co-founder of AMFAR, the astute physician who discovered AIDS, Don Francis, head CDC AIDS Task force who first discovered the causes of AIDS, Roger Detels, the senior investigator on largest epidemiological study on AIDS drugs and their efficacy, John Curnutte, senior investigator on the largest AIDS vaccine study, Peter Wolfe, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. He conceived the "test" litigation to rectify the epidemic of AIDS drug fraud that followed upon the AIDS epidemic by suing also hospitals with the strategy that if punitive damages could be obtained against the hospitals that tolerated AIDS physicians who used on their patients ineffective AIDS drugs that hospitals across the nation would recognize the danger of failing to revoke the staff privileges of physicians who practiced AIDS drug fraud. In addition to awarding compensatory damages, the jury found the defendant hospital liable both for negligence and conspiracy to defraud, and awarded 1.6 million dollars in punitive damages against the hospital. The case was chronicled in most of the most legitimate newspapers in the United States, from the front page of the New York Times to the front page of the Los Angeles Times, from the Washington Post to the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, in legal journals, including the National Law Journal, and on national television, including Tom Brokaw's NBC Evening News and CNN . Pharmaceutical product liability attorney, Henke, also testified before Congress with regard to these cases and the need to rein in AIDS drug fruad, at the invitation of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives.
$3.8 million dollar gross jury verdict in medical malpractice case involving failure to diagnose atrial myxoma, the most rare tumor in the human body. The plaintiff had presented initially to the defendant internist with a history of two episodes of feinting. The internist did a battery of tests including an electrocardiogram. When the tests failed to identify a medical cause for the feinting episodes the internist referred the patient to a neurologist who in turn did a battery of tests, also failing to identify a medical cause for the feinting episodes. The internist then diagnosed "vaso vagal syncope" a medical term suggesting a psychological cause for the feinting and referred the patient to a psychologist. The patient then had a stroke and the atrial myxoma was diagnosed during her hospitalization. The medical experts engaged by our Group medical malpractice attorney, Henke, offered to testify that while it was not required by the standard of care that the physicians consider atrial myxoma in their differential diagnoses, if they had considered other more common cardiologic disease and had they done an echocardiogram to rule them out, they would have seen the atrial myxoma. In the opening statements the defense attorneys made the argument that the plaintiffs were attempting to assign liability for failure to diagnose the rarest of tumors, one that most cardiologists would never have heard of, one that, in the very few case reports in the medical literature was in each case an autopsy diagnosis, atrial myxoma never having previously been diagnosed in a live patient. The Group medical malpractice attorney called as his first witness the defendant internist and led with his chin asking "Doctor, did you consider atrial myxoma in your differential diagnosis." The internist responded as he was assuredly coached to do by his attorneys, "Mr. Henke, you don't think of zebras when you hear hoof beats, which is actually a medical syllogism expressing the proposition that the physician should list the most common possible disease entities that can cause the patient's symptoms, not the rarest. But a light bulb went off in the brain of our Group medical malpractice lawyer and he first said softly "Mitral valve prolapse," and then more loudly, "It's a horse isn't it." His lawyer objected, but the doctor had "opened the door" and the Judge ordered the physician to answer the question. He dodged, saying, "I don't know what you mean." But our Group medical malpractice attorney was prepared, "Well, doctor, mitral valve prolapse occurs in about 6 percent of a randomly selected population of females Mrs. Z's age, its a horse, isn't it. The doctor replied, "Okay, its a horse." The medical malpractice lawyer continued, again first softly, "Mitral stenosis," and then more loudly, "Its a horse, isn't it doctor." The doctor said "Okay, its a horse." The medical malpractice lawyer continued, again first softly, "Idiopathic subaortic stenosis," and then more loudly "It's a horse, isn't it doctor." The doctor reluctantly admitted it again. And then the punch line, "So doctor, upon hearing the hoof beats, Mrs. Z's symptoms of feinting, had you merely thought horse, these other common potential cardiologic diagnoses, and turned in the direction of the hoof beats, performed and echocardiogram, you would have seen the zebra, wouldn't you have doctor. The medical malpractice attorney's use of the syllogism offered by the defendant internist was indeed faithful to the testimony that he would then elicit from his experts. The medical malpractice lawyer then came back to the zebra syllogism in closing argument to make more understandable than he might have otherwise the logical progression of his expert's premises upon which the jury then held both the internist and neurologist liable.
$1.5 million dollar settlement in a pharmaceutical product liability birth injury case. The case involved an experimental drug which the manufacturer sought to test for its efficacy as a sedative, employing over 1000 physicians nationwide. One of our Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyers, Henke, obtained from another, Pennsylvania Law Group drug product lawyer the list of the physicians who served as investigators for the drug company when 3 of his clients in the same small city contacted him with similar limb defects characteristic of the teratogenic drug, all of whose mothers were treated during pregnancy by the same obstetrician. It was confirmed that the mothers' common obstetrician was on the list of investigators who received the drug from the pharmaceutical company. The three cases, including the one above referenced case were filed against the drug manufacturer and the physician. The physician no longer had the patients' medical records. The clients mothers recalled receiving a sedative during pregnancy but did not recall the name of the drug. However, the Group pharmaceutical product liability attorney developed expert testimony that the limb defects were characteristic of limb defects caused by the suspect drug which combined with the evidence that the common obstetrician had access to the teratogenic sedative was deemed sufficient for the manufacturer and physician to resolve the above referenced case and the two others out of court for substantial settlements. The settlements were achieved despite that the mothers exposure to the drug and the births of the clients occurred more than 30 years prior to the case being filed, leading the manufacturer and physician to file demurrers and motions for summary judgment asserting the statute of limitations defense. The Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyer, Henke, responded to the motions with the contention that the manufacturer had sought to obscure that it had supplied the notorious drug to physicians in the United States, and that the physician intentionally concealed from the mothers that the drug might have been the cause of their babies birth defects. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the motions, and the settlements were achieved shortly thereafter..
Amount of settlement sealed by the Court. Law Group food poisoning lawyer, Nick Allis, settled a Food poisoning E. coli case resulting in Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, HUS on the eve of trial. The case resulted in one of the largest E.coli settlements or verdicts ever reported in the United States.
Most recently our Law Group pharmaceutical product liability lawyers have settled many Vioxx cases in the context of the Vioxx Class Action. In many of our cases we filed appeals of settlement awards granted by the settlement administrators, gaining superior settlement awards upon the appeals.
*The results obtained in the cases listed were dependent upon the facts of the cases, and the results will differ in other cases based on different facts
Driving Under the Influence of Cell Conversation Results in DUI Level Driving Impairment And a 4 fold Increased Likelihood that the Driver will Cause an Accident.
Read the Henke Law Group Scientific Review Article. As Auto Accident Lawyers Knowledgeable About the Scientific Evidence, We Can Investigate to Establish That The Other Driver Was On His Cell Phone, and The Evidence Can Often Make the Difference in a Contested Liability Case.
In Serious Accident Cases, Where Our Auto Accient Lawyers Can Establish That the Motorist Was Engaged in a Business Call, Our Accident Attorneys Can Bring the Motorist's Employer in as a Defendant and Recover Against the Employer's Assets and Insurance Coverage.
Our auto accident attorneys have reviewed all the epidemiology and controlled experimental literature on the effect of cell phone conversation to impair driver attention. Driving under the influence of cell conversation results in DUI level driving impairment and renders the motorist four times more likely to cause an accident. Contrary to popular belief, it is not "holding" the cell phone which results in the impairment. It is the diversion of conscious attention to the internal-cognitive tasks associated with the give and take of the cell conversation away from the external-visual tasks essential for safe driving. Indeed, it does not matter whether the motorist uses a handheld or hands-free cell phone, the impairment is the same, and the 4 fold increased likelihood that the motorist will cause an accident is precisely the same. Yes, a number of other states have enacted "handheld cell phone" laws; unfortunately that is just a function of politics. The scientists are not in dispute. All agree that driving under the influence of cell phone conversation, regardless of the device used, results in the identical DUI level driving impairment and increased likelihood that the driver will cause an accident.
It is important that the auto accident lawyer obtain the cell phone records of the other driver in every "contested liability case," and especially in any serious injury auto accident litigation in which it appears that the other driver lacks sufficient insurance coverage to fully compensate the plaintiff for his injuries and full measure of his damages. In the contested liability case, the evidence of the other party's cell phone use in the moments prior to the accident may snatch victory from the mouth of defeat. In the most common serious injury auto accident case in which the motorist lacks sufficient insurance to fully compensate the client for his injuries and damages, it is essential that the auto accident attorney obtain the cell phone records of the motorist and conduct the appropriate depositions to determine whether the other driver was engaged in a business call in the moments leading up to the bicycle accident. If he was, then the knowledgeable auto accident lawyer can bring the employer into the litigation as a defendant, "vicariously liable" for the injuries caused by its employee in the "course and scope of his employment." In this way the auto accident accident lawyer may assure that his client will be fully compensated up to the limits of the employers insurance policy, and indeed, the employer's assets would be available to execute against.
Read the Henke Law Group Scientific Review Article. As Auto Accident Lawyers Knowledgeable About the Scientific Evidence, We Can Investigate to Establish That The Other Driver Was On His Cell Phone, and The Evidence Can Often Make the Difference in a Contested Liability Case.
In Serious Accident Cases, Where Our Auto Accient Lawyers Can Establish That the Motorist Was Engaged in a Business Call, Our Accident Attorneys Can Bring the Motorist's Employer in as a Defendant and Recover Against the Employer's Assets and Insurance Coverage.
Our auto accident attorneys have reviewed all the epidemiology and controlled experimental literature on the effect of cell phone conversation to impair driver attention. Driving under the influence of cell conversation results in DUI level driving impairment and renders the motorist four times more likely to cause an accident. Contrary to popular belief, it is not "holding" the cell phone which results in the impairment. It is the diversion of conscious attention to the internal-cognitive tasks associated with the give and take of the cell conversation away from the external-visual tasks essential for safe driving. Indeed, it does not matter whether the motorist uses a handheld or hands-free cell phone, the impairment is the same, and the 4 fold increased likelihood that the motorist will cause an accident is precisely the same. Yes, a number of other states have enacted "handheld cell phone" laws; unfortunately that is just a function of politics. The scientists are not in dispute. All agree that driving under the influence of cell phone conversation, regardless of the device used, results in the identical DUI level driving impairment and increased likelihood that the driver will cause an accident.
It is important that the auto accident lawyer obtain the cell phone records of the other driver in every "contested liability case," and especially in any serious injury auto accident litigation in which it appears that the other driver lacks sufficient insurance coverage to fully compensate the plaintiff for his injuries and full measure of his damages. In the contested liability case, the evidence of the other party's cell phone use in the moments prior to the accident may snatch victory from the mouth of defeat. In the most common serious injury auto accident case in which the motorist lacks sufficient insurance to fully compensate the client for his injuries and damages, it is essential that the auto accident attorney obtain the cell phone records of the motorist and conduct the appropriate depositions to determine whether the other driver was engaged in a business call in the moments leading up to the bicycle accident. If he was, then the knowledgeable auto accident lawyer can bring the employer into the litigation as a defendant, "vicariously liable" for the injuries caused by its employee in the "course and scope of his employment." In this way the auto accident accident lawyer may assure that his client will be fully compensated up to the limits of the employers insurance policy, and indeed, the employer's assets would be available to execute against.
©2012 The Ray Henke Law Group