BELLEVILLE, Ill. ― Jeffrey R. Glass and Untress L. Quinn, attorneys in the firm’s Belleville office, recently obtained a complete defense verdict on behalf of a physician in Dickerson v. Dr. Cumberledge, et al., a $6 million medical malpractice lawsuit. Defendants in the case also included a dentist and medical entities.
Plaintiff, who was 63-years old at the time of the incidents giving rise to her lawsuit, filed her action in 2005 after being diagnosed on January 25, 2008 with a mycotic aneurysm rupture and infective endocarditis. She claimed that the dentist had improperly failed to prescribe prophylatic antibiotics before extracting teeth from her mouth on December 1, 2004. The patient also alleged that Hinshaw’s client had failed to diagnose and treat infective endocarditis when he examined her about six weeks after the teeth extractions. At the time of that examination, the patient explained that she had been suffering from a fever for three weeks and that she had recently had teeth extracted. Based on her clinical presentation and history, the physician diagnosed the patient with bronchitis and sinusitis, prescribed antibiotics and gave follow-up instructions.
Five days later, the patient visited a second physician, who received a history of "floppy" valve and heard an aortic valve heart murmur in plaintiff. Believing that the patient had viral symptoms, the second physician ordered a chest x-ray, which ultimately revealed no problems. Based on her findings, the second physician ordered no further treatment. The patient was subsequently hospitalized and the subject diagnoses were made.
Mr. Glass and Mr. Quinn argued that their client had met the standard of care in treating the patient, whose history and presentation did not suggest infective endocarditis, a very rare disease characterized by nonspecific signs and symptoms. Moreover, the patient had been diagnosed in 1998 with mitral insufficiency, aortic insufficiency and aortic stenosis. Consequently, even if Hinshaw’s physician client would have diagnosed and properly and timely treated the patient when he saw her, the patient's clinical course would have remained the same because the damage to her heart valves and middle cerebral artery was by then already done.
The verdict in the case, which was tried in St. Clair County Circuit Court, before Judge Andy Gleeson, followed a three-week trial and four hours of deliberations by the jury.
Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is a national law firm with 475 lawyers in 25 offices. The firm offers a full-service practice, with an emphasis in litigation, corporate and business law, environmental, labor and employment law, professional liability defense, and wealth preservation and taxation matters. The firm provides services to a range of for-profit and not-for-profit clients in industries that include construction, financial services, health care, insurance, legal, manufacturing, real estate, retail and transportation. Firm clients also include government agencies, municipalities and schools.
Hinshaw was founded in 1934. The firm is headquartered in Chicago, and maintains offices in 12 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.