Subject:  Ruling cuts family's award |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 08/22/05 5:37pm
Ruling cuts family's award
August 19, 2005
The family of a Detroit man who died in an ambulance after suffering a broken leg in a 1998 car crash is the latest casualty of a state law capping medical malpractice awards at $359,000.
Although a federal court jury in Detroit awarded the family of Kelly Smith $5 million in damages against Botsford General Hospital in Farmington Hills in May 2003 for allegedly failing to stabilize his condition before transferring him to another hospital, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the damage award must be limited to $359,000 under a law passed in the 1990s. "We didn't think this case had any merit from the beginning," said Lisa Vandecaveye, Botsford's vice president of legal affairs, who said the hospital did everything it could for Smith.
She said the hospital wasn't equipped to deal with a man of Smith's size -- he weighed 600 pounds -- too large for Botsford's equipment to successfully diagnose his internal bleeding. She said only two hospitals in the state are equipped to deal with someone that obese.
Botsford doctors decided to transport Smith to another hospital and he died en route.
Southfield lawyer Geoffrey Fieger said the decision is as outrageous as the state cap on noneconomic damage rewards, and that he plans to appeal.
"Doctors can kill you with impunity and your family members will get nothing," Fieger said Thursday, blaming former Gov. John Engler and the Republican-controlled Legislature for the cap.
Fieger said the cap is so low, lawyers can't afford to conduct the research required to successfully litigate such cases.
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