Cases – Gurfein Douglas

NY Daily News – EXCLUSIVE: Landscaper awarded $4M in medical misdiagnosis case

Written by Carlo Schaaij on July 30, 2020. Posted in Cases, Featured.

An upstate man has been awarded almost $4 million after a top neurologist had him undergo four years of agonizing treatments for a condition he didn’t have, the Daily News has learned.

Robert Wyble, 42, of Pine Island, Orange County, says he had his chest sawed open to remove his thymus gland, underwent biweekly blood treatments and was put on medication that caused him to gain 80 pounds and get hypertension — all because he’d been misdiagnosed as having a potentially fatal condition, myasthenia gravis.

Bus Pedestrian Accident Jury Awards $6.78 Million in Pedestrian Accident

Written by Carlo Schaaij on July 30, 2020. Posted in CAR ACCIDENTS, Cases, Featured.

On Thursday evening March 3, 2011, a New York County jury reached a verdict in the case of Ernest Lewis, an infant, by his mother, Brenda Lewis against the New York City Transit Authority, MABSTOA, and Courtney Thompson, Index no. 101833/07. The four-man, two-woman jury awarded the 13-year-old (now 27) plaintiff $6,783,202.90 for being run over by the BX19 bus at 145th Street and Convent Avenue on November 19, 2005.

After a church service at the First Calvary Baptist Church on 148th Street, Mrs. Lewis and her son Ernest were on their way home. They were trying to catch the BX19 bus at 145th Street at Convent Ave. bus stop. As Ernest was running alongside the bus he began hitting the side of the bus, which was not moving, to alert the driver of their presence. As he got in front of the middle wheels of this 60-foot long articulating bus, he tripped and his legs fell under the bus. An eyewitness, Alphonza Elliott, testified at the trial, that it was just about the time the child fell that the driver started the bus. The middle tire rode over his legs. Police officers called to the scene noted a tire tread impression in his leg

The driver claimed that he was aware the child was running for the bus but didn’t see him when he was near the middle of the bus and pulled into the intersection. He glanced at his right side mirror and saw a shadow on the ground and stopped the bus in the middle of the intersection to investigate. He found Ernest behind the middle tire. There was a lot of blood. He called the TA from the phone on his bus, while the eye witness called 911 on his cell phone.

The trial, which started on February 22, 2011, before Justice Geoffrey Wright in Supreme Court, New York County, ended this evening with the jury verdict. The jury awarded Ernest $2,500,000.00 for past pain and suffering, $283,202.09 for past medical expenses, and $4,000,000 over 10 years for future pain and suffering.

Ernest sustained a major degloving injury to his right lower leg tearing off skin, muscle, and tendons and exposing the bones, fracture of the distal fibula, avulsion of the distal tibia and a fracture of the left calcaneus. Ernest was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where skilled trauma specialists treated him for 3 1/2 weeks, saving his leg. He was taken to the OR on 8 separate occasions for placement of pins and an external fixator to hold the fractured fibula in place, placement of a rod in the fibula (permanent) to align the bone fragments, a syndesmotic screw to realign the spacing between the tibia and fibula and an 8 1/2 hour surgery to harvest muscle from his abdomen to transplant into his leg and to harvest skin from his thigh to graft over the transplanted muscle. He also had a cast on his left foot. After 3 1/ 2 weeks at Children’s hospital he was transferred to St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Ossining, New York on December 15, 2005. He remained there until February 24, 2006, making periodic visits to his doctors at Presbyterian. The cast on the left leg was removed on January 5, 2006, and the external fixator was removed on February 14, 2006.

He continued to receive nursing care and physical therapy at home until May 2006 when he finally returned to his 8th-grade class at St. Dominic’s School. Ernest is presently in his freshman year at Berkley College in Manhattan expecting to earn a degree in business in four years. Ernest and Mrs. Lewis were represented by Richard A. Gurfein, Esq. of Gurfein Douglas LLP in Manhattan. The Transit Authority and the other defendants were represented by Lynne Troy Henderson, Esq. of Wallace Gossett’s office.

Comment: The Bus Operator knew the child was alongside his bus. He should never have moved the bus until the child was out of the danger zone.

HANDS CRUSHED IN RECORD PRESS

Written by Carlo Schaaij on May 22, 2020. Posted in CAR ACCIDENTS, Cases.

$1,500,000 verdict in Federal Court in New York for a woman whose hand and wrist were crushed in a record press that made vinyl LP records.

This 35 year old woman was using a hydraulic and steam press to make LP records. Her job required her to place a paper label on the bottom plate, cover it with a “coil” of warm, soft vinyl and place another paper label on top. It was known that air currents sometimes dislodged the top label so the worker might have to adjust it after the cycle was started.

There was a single electric eye beam across the opening which would stop the press if someone’s hand were in danger as the press was closing. This beam consisting of a light source on one side and a receiver on the other was attached to the machine with simple hose clamps. The clamps frequently loosened and would shift position. They could also be moved to the bottom of the rod they were attached to so they wouldn’t operate at all.

At the time of the accident the worker had placed her hand back into the machine to adjust the top label, but the electric beam was at the bottom of the opening affording her no protection at all. This design was too easy to bypass which made the machine defective. The plaintiff, mother of 5 children, lost her hand at the wrist and wore a “claw” type of prosthesis on her left arm.

MILLION DOLLAR VERDICT REPORT

Written by Carlo Schaaij on May 15, 2020. Posted in MEDICAL MALPRACTICE.

Founding partner, Richard A. Gurfein, tried a medical malpractice case to verdict in Nassau County, NY. The jury awarded the family of a 60 year old auto mechanic $3.6 million dollars for his wrongful death.

On July 23, 2010, Nelson Zuluaga drove himself to Winthrop Hospital because he was having chest pain, shortness of breath and palpitations. These were the same symptoms he had 4 months earlier, in March, that also brought him to Winthrop’s emergency room. At that time a cardiologist assigned to him diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation and performed a cardioversion (synchronized shock to the heart) and restored his normal heartbeat.

Mr. Zuluaga was admitted to the Winthrop Hospital from the emergency room and placed on a telemetry floor until Monday when the cardiologist planned to do another cardioversion. However, around Midnight the first night he had an episode of 5 beats of ventricular tachycardia, renewed chest pain at a lower heart rate and a prolonged QT interval on his EKG.

These three new symptoms should have caused him to be moved to the CCU or coronary care unit where there would be more intensive monitoring of his condition. He was not moved. The following night, Saturday night at 2:40 AM Sunday morning, he again experienced 5 beats of ventricular tachycardia and the nurse notified the resident on call. This time no one came to the floor to examine Mr. Zuluaga, no vital signs were recorded in the chart, no orders were given and he was not transferred to the CCU. At 5:50AM he suffered a cardiac arrest and a team was called to the telemetry floor. Resuscitation lasted one hour and twenty minutes. He was shocked on 4 separate occasions. He survived, but suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen due to the extra time it took to start resuscitation. Had he been in the CCU, resuscitation would have begun much sooner and brain damage would have been avoided.

Mr. Zuluaga spent the next 5 and a half months at Winthrop Hospital with a myriad of medical problems caused by the brain damage and inactivity. He was then transferred to A. Holly Patterson Nursing Home and with a few short weeks of their therapies he was able to speak and make purposeful movements of his arms and legs. Unfortunately, while he was immobile at Winthrop a feeding tube had to be inserted through the stomach wall because he could not control his muscles sufficiently to chew or swallow. That tube became clogged on April 14, 2011 and he was taken to Nassau University Medical Center for evaluation and surgery. Before that could be done he suffered a respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated and passed away on April 15, 2011, nine months after the arrest at Winthrop.

The jury made awards for wrongful death, medical expenses, loss of wages, loss of pension benefits, conscious pain and suffering and loss of consortium totaling $3,600,069.00 against Winthrop Hospital for the failure of the resident on call to respond to the nurse’s notice of 5 beats of ventricular tachycardia.

Mr. Zuluaga is survived by his wife, Isabel, his children Nelson B. and Nelisa and one grandchild.

CONSTRUCTION WORKER INJURED IN LIMO RIDE

Written by Carlo Schaaij on May 10, 2020. Posted in CAR ACCIDENTS.

$1,000,000 settlement after a trial on liability for a 35 year old plasterer who was a passenger in the back seat of a Town Car limo.

The plaintiff and his wife and children had come to New York for the day from Boston. Because his wife worked for an airline it was very inexpensive for them to fly to New York to do their Christmas shopping. On the way back to LaGuardia Airport the limo driver got lost and wound up in the back of the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia. After stopping for instructions he made a U-turn directly in front of a airline pilot driving to the employee parking lot. The pilot’s car impacted the rear, driver’s side door directly into the husband.

He sustained serious and permanent back injuries as a result of the crash and could no longer work as a plasterer. The jury found the limo driver 75% at fault and the pilot 25% at fault. The case settled for $1,000,000 before the start of the trial on damages.