Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

The case involves a medical malpractice suit brought by the parents of a stillborn child against the midwives who attended the birth. The plaintiffs alleged that the midwives failed to obtain informed consent for delivery by midwife at a birth center instead of by a physician at a hospital. They claimed the midwives did not disclose the risks associated with midwife delivery for an expectant mother of advanced maternal age with a history of miscarriage. The superior court granted summary judgment in favor of the midwives, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to present evidence that midwife delivery caused the stillbirth.The superior court found that the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient evidence to establish proximate cause, a necessary element in informed consent claims. The court noted that the plaintiffs needed to show both that they would not have consented to the treatment if properly informed and that the treatment caused the injury. The midwives presented expert testimony indicating that their care did not cause the stillbirth, and the plaintiffs failed to rebut this with their own expert evidence.The Supreme Court of the State of Alaska reviewed the case and affirmed the superior court's summary judgment in favor of the midwives. The court held that the plaintiffs did not present admissible evidence to dispute the midwives' expert opinion that the stillbirth was caused by an infection unrelated to the midwives' care. The court also affirmed the superior court's award of enhanced attorney’s fees to the midwives, finding that the plaintiffs engaged in vexatious or bad faith conduct during the litigation. The court concluded that the plaintiffs' failure to provide necessary expert testimony on causation was fatal to their claims. View "Goodwin v. Mat-Su Midwifery, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2009, a surgeon performed a shoulder replacement surgery on a patient, during which the patient suffered a fracture and subsequent nerve injury, resulting in permanent radial nerve palsy. The patient sued the surgeon and associated medical entities for professional negligence, claiming vicarious liability. The case went to trial twice; the first trial resulted in a verdict for the defendants, but the court granted a new trial due to juror misconduct. The second trial resulted in a verdict for the patient, awarding significant damages, which the court reduced according to statutory caps.The Eighth Judicial District Court of Clark County oversaw the trials. After the second trial, the court reduced the pain and suffering damages to $350,000 pursuant to NRS 41A.035, awarded attorney fees, and capped expert witness costs. The defendants moved for a new trial based on alleged juror misconduct, which the court denied. Both parties appealed various aspects of the court's decisions, including the application of the damages cap, the res ipsa loquitur instruction, and the award of attorney fees and costs.The Supreme Court of Nevada reviewed the case. It held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in giving a res ipsa loquitur instruction despite expert testimony, as the relevant statutory amendments did not apply retroactively. The court affirmed the reduction of pain and suffering damages to $350,000, applying the statutory cap to both the surgeon and the medical entities. The court also upheld the denial of a new trial based on juror misconduct, finding no intentional concealment or prejudice.Regarding attorney fees, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court's award but modified it to comply with NRS 7.095, capping the total recoverable amount. The court found no conflict between NRCP 68 and NRS 18.005 but remanded the case for further proceedings on expert witness fees, requiring a more detailed application of the Frazier factors. The judgment and order denying a new trial were affirmed, the attorney fees award was affirmed as modified, and the order retaxing costs was reversed in part. View "NEVINS VS. MARTYN" on Justia Law

In a medical malpractice case, Bobbi Ann Mertis filed a lawsuit against Dr. Dong-Joon Oh, North American Partners in Anesthesia (Pennsylvania), LLC (NAPA), Wilkes-Barre Hospital, and Commonwealth Health. Mertis alleged that Dr. Oh negligently administered a femoral nerve block, causing her a femoral nerve injury. Dr. Oh retained a law firm, Scanlon, Howley & Doherty, to represent him. Later, Dr. Eugene Kim, the orthopedic surgeon who performed Mertis’s knee surgery and was not named as a defendant, also retained the same law firm after receiving a subpoena to appear at a discovery deposition.The Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas denied Mertis's motion for sanctions to disqualify the law firm from representing Dr. Oh and to bar the firm's further ex parte communication with Dr. Kim. The court found no violation of Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 4003.6, which regulates obtaining information from a party's treating physician. Mertis appealed to the Superior Court, which reversed the trial court's decision and remanded the case. The Superior Court found that Rule 4003.6 was violated and that the law firm's concurrent representation of Dr. Oh and Dr. Kim was tantamount to ex parte communication.The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the Superior Court's decision. The court concluded that a law firm representing a defendant treating physician cannot obtain information from a nonparty treating physician without the patient's written consent or through an authorized method of discovery. The court found that the client exception in Rule 4003.6(1) does not permit a law firm to obtain information from a nonparty treating physician by entering into an attorney-client relationship with that physician when the law firm's attorneys were already prohibited from obtaining information from that physician under Rule 4003.6 prior to entering such attorney-client relationship. View "Mertis v. Oh" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court of Nevada ruled on a motion for disqualification of a supreme court justice in a medical malpractice action appeal. The appellant argued that Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct 2.11(A)(6)(d) required disqualification of Justice Douglas Herndon, who had been assigned the case when he was a district judge, but had not heard or decided any matters in the case before it was reassigned. The appellant argued that the rule required disqualification whenever a judge previously presided over a matter, regardless of the level of involvement.Justice Herndon and the respondents countered that he had seen no documents and performed no work on the case at the district court level, and therefore his impartiality could not be questioned. They argued that the Code of Judicial Conduct does not require disqualification in such circumstances, and that a judge has a general duty to hear and decide cases where disqualification is not required.After considering the language and context of the Code of Judicial Conduct, along with similar cases from other jurisdictions, the Supreme Court of Nevada held that to "preside" over a matter within the meaning of the disqualification rule, a judge must have exercised some control or authority over the matter in the lower court. Given that Justice Herndon had simply been administratively assigned the case and took no action during his assignment, he did not "preside" over the case in a way that mandated disqualification. The court therefore denied the motion for disqualification. View "Taylor v. Brill" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court denied Petitioner Jane Nelson's petition for a writ of mandamus challenging a district court order denying her motion to disqualify McBride Hall from representing real parties in interest Dr. Muhammad Said Sabir and Pioneer Health Care, LLC (collectively, Sabir) in her medical malpractice action, holding that Nelson failed to establish that she was entitled to the writ.Nelson's attorney, Adam Breeden, owned a solo practice and employed Kristy Johnson as his paralegal. While Johnson was employed at Breeden's practice Breeden represented Plaintiffs in two cases for which McBride Hall acted as defense counsel. Nelson moved to disqualify McBride Hall from representing Sabir due to Johnson's purported knowledge of Breeden's legal conclusions on Nelson's case. The district court denied the motion to disqualify. Nelson then sought a writ of mandamus instructing the district court to vacate its ruling. The Supreme Court denied the writ, holding that automatic disqualification was not necessary. View "Nelson v. Eighth Judicial District Court" on Justia Law

Antoinette Belle, as personal representative of the estate of Edith Mitchell, deceased, sued various health-care providers that treated Mitchell while she was hospitalized in April 2009. Belle eventually reached settlements with all of those health-care providers except two physicians. The trial court entered a summary judgment against Belle and in favor of the two physicians, bringing the medical-malpractice action to a close. Belle then filed a legal-malpractice case against four attorneys and three law firms that had represented her at varying times in the medical-malpractice action, alleging they had been negligent in representing her. Belle later brought an additional claim of fraudulent concealment. The attorneys and law firms denied the allegations against them, arguing that Belle's claims were untimely and that they had no factual or legal basis. The trial court agreed and entered judgments in favor of the attorneys and law firms. Belle appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed judgment in the attorneys and law firms. View "Belle v. Goldasich, Jr., et al." on Justia Law

In 2009, Della Gallegos had to undergo three cranial surgeries after her radiologist, Dr. Steven Hughes, failed to detect an obvious brain tumor on an MRI scan three years earlier. Had Dr. Hughes discovered the tumor in 2006, Gallegos could have treated it with cheaper, and less invasive, radiosurgery. The highly invasive cranial surgeries damaged Gallegos’s vision, hearing, and memory. Gallegos retained attorney Patric LeHouillier to sue Dr. Hughes for medical malpractice. But LeHouillier later decided not to proceed with the suit, concluding it did not make economic sense. He and Gallegos disagreed over whether he actually informed her of this decision, and the statute of limitations lapsed on the claims Gallegos could have brought against Dr. Hughes. Gallegos thereafter brought this attorney malpractice case against LeHouillier and his firm, claiming that LeHouillier’s negligence prevented her from successfully suing Dr. Hughes for medical malpractice. The question before the Colorado Supreme Court involved who bore the burden to prove that any judgment that could have been obtained against Dr. Hughes would have been collectible. The Supreme Court concluded that because the collectibility of the underlying judgment was essential to the causation and damages elements of a client’s negligence claim against an attorney, it held the client-plaintiff bore the burden of proving that the lost judgment in the underlying case was collectible. Here, the record reflected Gallegos failed to present sufficient evidence of collectibility. However, given the absence of a clear statement from the Supreme Court regarding plaintiff's burden to prove collectibility at the time of trial, and because the issue was not raised in this case until after Gallegos had presented her case-in-chief, the Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded for a new trial. View "LeHouillier v. Gallegos" on Justia Law

Defendants sought ex parte interviews with a number of non-party medical providers in this medical malpractice action. Because of this, an issue arose regarding the scope of the physician–patient privilege in medical-malpractice actions. Section 13-90-107(1)(d), C.R.S. (2017), prohibited certain medical providers from revealing, in testimony or otherwise, information about a patient gathered in the course of treating that patient. That prohibition, however, was not unlimited. The dispute, as presented to the Colorado Supreme Court, did not implicate the physician–patient relationship between Kelley Bailey (“Bailey”) and Defendants, meaning section 107(1)(d)(I) was inapplicable. Instead, the issue here was whether the non-party medical providers were “in consultation with” Defendants such that section 107(1)(d)(II) removed that typically privileged information from the protection of the physician–patient privilege. The Supreme Court held the non-party medical providers were not in consultation with Defendants for the purposes of section 107(1)(d)(II). However, the Court remanded this case to the trial court for consideration of whether the Baileys impliedly waived the physician–patient privilege for the non-party medical providers. On remand, if the trial court concluded that the Baileys did waive that privilege, it should reconsider whether there is any risk that: (1) ex parte interviews with the non-party medical providers would inadvertently reveal residually privileged information; or (2) Defendants would exert undue influence on the non-party medical providers in the course of any ex parte interviews. View "In re Bailey v. Hermacinski" on Justia Law

In 1997, Aaron sustained a catastrophic brain injury at birth due to the negligence of employees at Lee Memorial. The family retained the law firm, under a contingency fee agreement providing for payment of 40 percent of any recovery if a lawsuit was filed, plus costs, and stating that if "one of the parties to pay my claim for damages is a governmental agency, I understand that Federal and Florida Law may limit the amount of attorney fees ... in that event, I understand that the fees owed ... shall be the amount provided by law.” A jury awarded the child $28.3 million, the mother $1.34 million, and the father $1 million. Because the hospital was an independent special district of the state, the court enforced the sovereign immunity damage limitations and entered a judgment for $200,000, which was affirmed. The firm pursued a two-year lobbying effort to secure a claims bill from the Legislature. In 2012 the Legislature passed a claims bill, directing Lee Memorial to pay $10 million, with an additional $5 million to be paid in annual installments to a special needs trust for Aaron, stating that payment of fees and costs from those funds shall not exceed $100,000. No funds were awarded for the parents. The firm petitioned the guardianship court to approve a $2.5 million for attorneys’ fees and costs. The court denied the request. On appeal, the district court affirmed. The Supreme Court of Florida reversed, holding that the fee limitation in the claims bill is unconstitutional and may not stand when such a limitation impairs a preexisting contract. View "Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart & Shipley. v. Florida" on Justia Law

In 2001, the decedent presented to the Wetzel County Hospital Emergency Room in New Martinsville and came under the care of Dr. Murthy, a surgeon; she slipped into shock and died the next day. Her estate filed a medical negligence action, alleging that Murthy failed to perform exploratory surgery to identify, diagnose and correct the decedent’s “intraabdominal condition.” A jury awarded $4,000,000 in compensatory damages. After the trial, the circuit court allowed amendment of the complaint to add Murthy’s insurance carrier, Woodbrook, alleging that Woodbrook made all relevant decisions for Murthy’s defense and acted vexatiously and in bad faith. Following a remand, Murthy paid a reduced judgment, plus interest, in the total amount of $1,162,741.60 and filed motions in limine to preclude certain matters from consideration on the issue of attorney fees and costs, including an unrelated case that resulted in a $5,764,214.75 verdict against Dr. Murthy in March 2007. The court dismissed Woodbrook as a party-defendant and awarded the estate attorney fees and costs. The precise calculation was to be later determined. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed, concluding that the lower court’s reliance on certain conduct by Murthy did not justify the award. View "Murthy v. Karpacs-Brown" on Justia Law