Congratulations to Mary Coffey and Genevieve Nichols who recently received a $2.5 million verdict in St. Louis County in a medical malpractice case.  Any trial lawyer can tell you that St. Louis County is a tough place to try cases...but it's near impossible to win a medical malpractice case there.  Mary and Genevieve did an outstanding job for their clients.  I hear their trial tactics were a testament to David Ball's approach.  A copy of a recent article detailing their win is below:

A jury awarded $2.58 million Wednesday night to an Arnold couple in a
medical malpractice case where a retiree got a staph infection and lost his right leg, part of his left foot, a kidney and some hearing.

The jury in St. Louis County Circuit Court found in favor of James Klotz, 69,the victim of the infection, and awarded him $2,067,000 in past and future economic and noneconomic damages.

The jury then awarded damages of $513,000 to Mary Klotz, his wife of 46 years.  She quit her job to help care for her husband for the last four years.

The jury found Dr. Michael Shapiro and Metro Heart Group of St. Louis to be 67 percent responsible and St. Anthony's Medical Center to be 33 percent responsible. Shapiro installed a pacemaker in Klotz's heart in March 2004.

In closing arguments, Klotz's attorney, Mary Coffey, said Klotz has undergone 15 surgeries, spent 84 days in hospitals, made 137 visits to doctor's offices, recovered from temporary brain damage and has had to learn to walk again with a prosthesis.

Defense attorneys James Hennelly and John T. Eckenrode denied any liability by either the hospital or Shapiro. They said Klotz could have gotten the infection anywhere.

On March 17, 2004, Klotz suffered a heart attack and paramedics inserted an IV on the way to St. Anthony's, where he was admitted. Shapiro installed a temporary pacemaker on March 20 and a permanent pacemaker the next day.

Klotz was discharged from the hospital on March 24.  Klotz was stricken in late April at the couple's time-share place in Sedona, Ariz., and later diagnosed at a hospital in Phoenix with Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus, also known as MRSA. The infection led doctors there to remove the pacemaker and found golf-ball size masses of infection in his body.

Coffey argued that the infection came from the IV that paramedics had inserted and the staff at St. Anthony's had failed to remove within 48 hours. She cited testimony of an expert that 75 percent of MRSA comes from hospitals. She alleged that Shapiro had installed the pacemaker even though there was redness on the right wrist of the patient, and the installation became the conduit for the infection to spread.

Eckenrode said there was no negligence by Shapiro, that the installation of the pacemaker was essential and lifesaving, and that Shapiro correctly diagnosed the redness as inflammation, not infection.

Hennelly argued that nurses' notes indicated the IV had been changed within 12 hours of Klotz's arrival at the hospital. He said Klotz could have caught the infection anywhere, "cut shaving, a paper cut, bumped into something" and that St. Anthony's had not been negligent.

Eckenrode said afterward he expected that the jury verdict, signed by nine of the 12 jurors after seven hours of deliberation, would be appealed.

If you need to speak to a St. Louis Medical Malpractice Lawyer, contact Josh Myers.  His practice is exclusively focused on personal injury.  It is always free to discuss a potential case.