Medical Malpractice Legal News Articles & Interviews

Honolulu, HIIt was error after error that killed Julie Bond. She was the 31-year-old wife of former Army Staff Sgt. Donald Bond and a healthy mother of three. She just wanted to lose those extra pregnancy pounds. But six weeks after laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, she was dead. Tripler Army Medical Center ultimately settled the medical malpractice lawsuit brought by her family for $9.5 million.

Washington, DC On June 5, Staff Sgt. Ryan Carter, filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging a 1950 judge-made rule that prevents “tortiously injured military service members” from filing veterans medical malpractice lawsuits against the federal government. The “Feres doctrine,” as this rule is known, has come under increasing criticism in recent years. Carter’s challenge stands out, however, because the facts giving rise to its application in his case are particularly troubling. 

Columbia, SC William Whittaker, an Army veteran, died on March 27, 2022 of lung cancer. He was 64. His widow filed a medical malpractice lawsuit in South Carolina’s federal district court. The lawsuit alleged that his death could have been prevented with timely diagnosis and treatment of a condition known to his doctor since 2020. The claim, essentially, is that he died of medical neglect. On April 5, the hospital agreed to settle  the lawsuit for $880,000. These are the bare bones of a terrible family story.

South Bend, IN In May, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the family of Jason Moon for $1.7 million. Moon had served two tours as a medical evacuation crew member during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He shot himself to death in 2022 while at home with his wife and children. The medical malpractice lawsuit filed by his widow alleges that Moon had never been properly diagnosed or treated for severe post-traumatic stress syndrome at the South Bend Vet Center.

Westchester County, NY – A state Supreme Court jury last November awarded $120 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit against Westchester Medical Center. In 2018 the plaintiff was rushed to hospital and because doctors failed to diagnose a stroke, he suffered extensive brain damage. The hospital argued that brain damage had already occurred before he was admitted.

Salt Lake City, UT In 2016, the Utah legislature amended existing medical malpractice law to permit people who are not patients to sue a medical practitioner for medical negligence – but only in some circumstances. The amended law appears to codify the Utah Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in B.R. v. West, a particularly gruesome murder case.

Boise, ID Shane Ackerschott hurt his back lifting freight at work, but that wasn’t what put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. An Idaho jury found that Ackerschcott became paralyzed from the waist down because of medical malpractice at the urgent care clinic he and his wife, Rebecca, visited. The jury in Ackerschott v. Mountain View Hospital awarded them $7.96 million.

Macon, GA: It was a Georgia medical malpractice lawsuit in its most basic form: written in longhand by a convicted murderer and filed from prison initially without an attorney. That was in 2014. However, lest one assume that plaintiff Michael Tarver, an inmate at the Macon State Prison would face an uphill battle in his lawsuit, in the end Tarver would win the day with a settlement before his case had a chance to go to trial.

Muscogee County, GA: In what is believed to be one of the largest awards to a patient for a Georgia medical malpractice lawsuit in the State, a brain-damaged plaintiff goes home with a total of $26 million after a Superior Court jury found St. Francis Hospital Inc. (St. Francis) 100 percent liable for the post-surgery injuries sustained by patient Sandra Williams.

Atlanta, GA: A Georgia widow has filed a Medical Malpractice lawsuit against an Atlanta hospital group. She is charging that negligent care caused her husband to endure fourth-degree bedsores during his stay at the facility and resulted in unnecessary suffering that ultimately lead to his death.