Subject:  NEW - Malpractice lawsuit to begin in South Carolina |
Author:
Chris
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 07/21/06 7:54pm
Here is a photo from the other day:
Here is the story:
Posted on Fri, Jul. 21,
Kevorkian’s lawyer tries case in Midlands
Fieger brings high profile to Lexington County malpractice trial
By RICK BRUNDRETT
rbrundrett@thestate.com
The story comes courtesy of The State newspaper.
Geoffrey Fieger talks with his team of lawyers Wednesday in Lexington.Geoffrey Fieger is a lawyer who tends to draw a crowd.
The attorney, best known for defending assisted-suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian, is the lead plaintiff’s lawyer in an unusual medical malpractice trial under way in Lexington County.
The civil jury trial, which pits the widow of a doctor against Lexington Medical Center and two other doctors, is expected to last about three weeks. Millions of dollars are at stake.
Fieger is an animated lawyer, often using hand motions and smiling at jurors after grilling witnesses.
The Detroit-area attorney gravitates toward big-award cases. His law firm Web site boasts he has won “more multimillion dollar awards than any other attorney in the country.”
He cites, for example, a $25million verdict he won in a lawsuit alleging “The Jenny Jones Show” was negligent in the death of a man who was killed after revealing a crush on another man.
Although reared in Michigan, Fieger said he has ties to South Carolina, including a place at Hilton Head. The Lexington County trial is his first in the Columbia area, he said.
“If it were 30 degrees cooler, this would be a very, very nice place,” he joked during a break in the trial.
Fieger said he took the Lexington County case after being contacted by his client, Margaret Sheikh.
“I determined she had a valid case that needed to be brought.”
But he declined to discuss specifics, citing South Carolina ethical rules for lawyers.
In her lawsuit, Sheikh alleges her husband, Dr. Asif Sheikh, 58, had a heart problem and was not properly monitored while he was on painkiller drugs after his double knee-replacement surgery Dec. 31, 2001, at Lexington Medical Center.
Her husband, an orthopedic surgeon who had served on the center’s board of trustees and also as chief of the hospital’s orthopedics board, died of cardiac arrest about 17 hours after the surgery, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit contends the doctors involved with his surgery were “reckless and careless” by failing to “obtain a cardiology consult” before operating on Sheikh, failing to “properly administer” anesthesia to him during the surgery, and failing to monitor his condition afterward.
The surgery was performed by Dr. Thomas Gross, a partner of Sheikh at Midlands Orthopaedics, the lawsuit said. Gross is a defendant in the lawsuit, along with Dr. Gail Capell, an anesthesiologist.
The hospital, Gross and Capell in court papers deny liability. Capell’s answer to the lawsuit said Sheikh’s death stemmed from his “physical infirmities and a natural disease process.”
Jurors will hear a barrage of medical terminology during the trial before Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein in the Marc H. Westbrook Courthouse. Fieger has used large charts and computer screen presentations this week to make his points.
Fieger’s high-profile cases and penchant for the media spotlight have helped make him well-known nationwide. He even has his own fan club, with a Web site dubbed “Fans of Fieger.”
In 1998, Fieger tried to capitalize on his name recognition, making an unsuccessful run for governor of Michigan.
But he is best known for obtaining several acquittals for Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist who claimed he had assisted in more than 130 suicides. Fieger didn’t represent Kevorkian when the doctor was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in the assisted suicide of a terminally ill man with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Fieger isn’t licensed to practice law in the Palmetto State. But he was allowed to take the Sheikh case after applying in 2003 under a special state court rule allowing an out-of-state attorney to handle an in-state case.
Fieger is being assisted by Columbia attorney Ken Suggs, a longtime medical malpractice lawyer.
Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 
